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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

More than 160,000 Nevadans Await Action on Unemployment Benefits

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012   

LAS VEGAS - Congress has less than two weeks to take action on extending unemployment benefits - a critical issue for the Silver State, where the jobless rate has been stuck at around 12 percent for years.

A key issue facing Congress is how long benefits should run, says Jon Sasser, the Legal Services statewide advocacy coordinator. The Senate wants to restore them to run 93 weeks, while the House wants to limit the maximum benefit to 59 weeks.

"So, it would mean for Nevadans a much shorter period of time on benefits - and with 166,000 Nevadans depending on this program, it'll hurt a lot of people and it'll hurt our economy."

Opponents of the Senate's 93-week plan are calling it excessive. If Congress does not act, the National Employment Law Project estimates the number of jobless Americans facing benefit cuts would rise to more than 3 million by this summer.

Kris Bergstrom, a senior attorney for Nevada Legal Services, cites a common misperception: that people getting jobless benefits stop looking for work because they're getting "free money." She says that is certainly not the case in Nevada.

"They're subsistence-level benefits; oftentimes they are not enough to pay for people's mortgages, or really meet their living expenses from before they lost their job. We see people come in, and they have their eviction notice in one hand and their unemployment hearing notice in the other."

Sasser says the House also wants to add drug testing and GED requirements to qualify for unemployment benefits, which he sees as having no bearing on why people are receiving them.

"People have worked for years and they've paid into the system that, due to the bad economy, have lost their jobs. And there's no evidence that a GED would in fact help them - or that there's a capacity to take on that many new people in the GED program."

Congress faces a Feb. 28 deadline to take action.



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