The Unemployment Reality

If Congress doesn't take action by next Friday, 1.2 million Americans will lose their jobless benefits.  If they don't take action by May 31, that number rises to 5.6 million.  And it gets worse:

According to the BLS, there are a record 6.31 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks (and still want a job). This is a record 4.1% of the civilian workforce. (note: records started in 1948).

The current qualification dates extension being considered is for another three months. Cynics might argue that some Senators want to limit the extension to an additional three months, so they can use the popular benefit extension in May to once again extend the homebuyer tax credit - hopefully the cynics are wrong! 

Hopefully.  But if you're the GOP, you most certainly want to find a way to monkey wrench this...after all the only people out of work this long are just hippies and minorities anyway, not Real Americans, right?   Who will be the first Republican to say we need to cut off unemployment benefits in order to save the economy from debt?