Unemployment rate falls, but many will be without benefits soon [Hamilton JournalNews, Ohio]

Dec. 03--The jobless rate fell to its lowest level in more than two years last month, but that offers little consolation to the tens of thousands of still unemployed Ohioans who will be cut off from insurance benefits next year if Congress doesn't act soon.

The national unemployment rate fell from 9 percent to 8.6 percent in November as employers added 120,000 nonfarm jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. That was the lowest rate since March 2009.

Still, nearly 14 million Americans remain unemployed, including more than a half million in Ohio, where unemployment hovers around 9 percent.

More than 40 percent of unemployed workers have been jobless for six months or longer, and most are receiving extended unemployment insurance benefits.

Federally funded extended benefits can last up to 99 weeks and are paid out in tiers, once state benefits have been exhausted.

But unless Congress reauthorizes the program by the end of the year, those benefits will start to expire, affecting about 935 Butler County households.

Susan Enloe, 48, said finding a job right now is just the luck of the draw. Enloe was laid off in May from a jewelry manufacturer in Fairfield after working for that company 1.5 years. Before that she was unemployed 18 months.

She said she worked in accounting for 20 years.

"I'm afraid even if I take a temporary lower paying job, that may put me in that lower category and I'll never recover from that. You lose years of my unemployment history simply by taking a lower paying job, then I'm going to be stuck in lower paying jobs. Not only that, it's the challenge," she said.

The average length of unemployment now stands at near-record high 40.9 weeks, and there are about five unemployed workers for every job opening, according to the Labor Department's latest figures.

Congressional leaders in both the House and Senate have been working on a way to extend benefits, but partisan bickering over how to pay for the extension has delayed action.

Republicans want to pay for an extension mostly through budget cuts, while President Obama and Democratic leaders have proposed increasing taxes on the wealthy.

Enloe, a mother of two, said her 29-year-old daughter just graduated from nursing school, but can't find a job either.

Her daughter said, "Mom you told me to go to college and now I'm in the same boat as you are."

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