$4-Billion Remnant of Job Bill Clears Congress

The only surviving part of President Clinton’s ill-fated stimulus package won final congressional approval Thursday when the House adopted a Senate-passed bill providing $4 billion for extended unemployment benefits. The vote was 301 to 114.

The measure will fund extra jobless payments for 20 or 26 weeks, depending on the level of state unemployment, for laid-off workers who exhaust the 26 weeks provided under existing law. In California and five other states with high jobless rates, benefits will be paid for 26 additional weeks.

Even as the legislation was sent to the White House for Clinton’s signature, House Democrats began discussing a second, trimmed-down stimulus package focused entirely on creating jobs.

Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said another bill providing funds for summer jobs, childhood immunization, expanded highway construction and other programs is being considered by the Democratic leadership.

“We can and should do something about enhancing summer jobs this year,” Foley told reporters on the day after Clinton’s bill was killed in the Senate, the victim of a Republican filibuster that Democrats were unable to break.

A total of 231 Democrats, 69 Republicans and one independent voted for the bill, while 99 Republicans and 15 Democrats opposed it.

Under a previous law, the extra benefits would be paid to workers who exhaust their regular benefits between now and Oct. 2. Individuals who start to receive the emergency payments before Oct. 2 may continue to receive them until Jan. 15. The law provides, however, that those who already have received emergency benefits will not be eligible for a second round of extra payments.