Senate Panel OKs Measure Extending Jobless Benefits : Legislation: With swift congressional approval, the $2.7-billion bill adding 13 weeks of payments could be sent to President Bush for his signature next week.

Legislation to extend jobless benefits for another 13 weeks for the long-term unemployed easily won final congressional committee approval Thursday and is expected to be sent to President Bush for his signature early next week.

The Senate Finance Committee’s unanimous approval of the $2.7-billion bill reflected bipartisan support that appears to ensure swift adoption of the measure by the full Senate as well as the House. The bill then would be sent to the White House for Bush to sign into law as the first recession relief legislation of 1992.

“These benefits represent a sorely needed helping hand as the economy continues to flounder,” said Finance Committee Chairman Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.). Warning that unemployment is likely to remain at or slightly above the 7% level for the rest of the year, Bentsen called it essential for Congress to extend the emergency benefits to workers “suffering through the longest period of slow or no growth since World War II.”

Congress approved a similar extension last November, giving as much as 20 weeks of additional assistance to unemployed workers whose normal 26 weeks of compensation had expired. The new bill would grant another extension of benefits, which will begin to run out for some unemployed workers next month, for another 13 weeks.

Budget officials estimate that the legislation will cost $2.7 billion--a sum that originally made the White House balk.

Bush, facing a tough reelection campaign and criticism that he has been insensitive to concerns of the middle class, said that he favored the legislation after House Democrats and Republicans agreed to a formula to pay for the added benefits with surplus budget funds and changes in the way corporations pay taxes. The deal means that the extension would not violate the 1990 budget agreement between Congress and the White House.

Swift approval of the measure would mean benefits that begin to expire next month would continue as voters in economically hard-hit New Hampshire cast their ballots in the first presidential primary Feb. 18.

The bill, which already has been approved by the House Ways and Means Committee, would make the additional benefits available for all states. Jobless workers in states with an unemployment rate of at least 9% would be eligible for up to 59 weeks of compensation. Workers in all other states, including California, would be eligible for 52 weeks.