WASHINGTON – President Obama’s top economic advisor Sunday touted the improved economy even as he called for an extension of jobless benefits.
“It is true the economy is improving and showing more momentum. The unemployment rate in general is falling,” Gene Sperling, chairman of the National Economic Council, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“But what we’re finding is that the worst legacy of the Great Recession is that there is a crisis of long-term unemployment — people who have been unemployed for six months or longer are finding it most difficult,” he said.
The Senate will vote Monday on a bill that would extend long-term jobless benefits for three more months.
It would restore unemployment checks for about 1.3 million Americans who have been out of work for nearly two years and whose benefits expired in December.
The White House and Democratic lawmakers have made the issue part of an election-year focus on fighting “income inequality” in America, echoing the campaign battle cry of Mayor de Blasio.
The president also is set to push for raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour.
Obama will surround himself with out-of-work Americans at a White House event Tuesday to increase pressure on Republicans to approve the unemployment payments.
“We have to be a country committed to leaving nobody behind in this recovery, and so that requires a full-court press,” said Sperling. “We as a country have never, never over the last half century have we cut off emergency unemployment benefits when long-term unemployment has been this high. Never before.”
Republicans mostly support more jobless benefits but want the cost, about $6.4 billion for a three-month extention, to be offset with spending reductions.
“I’m not opposed to unemployment insurance, I am opposed to having it without paying for it,” Tea Party favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Democrats brushed aside that argument.
“This year, dealing with declining middle class incomes and not enough job growth will be the number one issue,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the same show.
“If, on the first day of the new session, the Republican Party says they won’t even support an unemployment benefit extension — the original round was started by George Bush when unemployment was 5.6 percent — they’re going to show themselves so far out of the mainstream, it’s going to hurt them in the election,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) slammed Republicans for questioning more jobless benefits.
“This is typical for Republican members of congress. Not Republicans, but Republican members of congress,” Reid said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“The vast majority of the American people believe that unemployment benefits should be extended,” he said. “Never with unemployment like this have we ever even considered not extending them.”
Reid said that he expected the measure would win support from enough Senate Republicans to survive a test vote Monday.
The bill will face a tougher road in the Republican-run House.