Nearly 1.5 million Californians could see their unemployment checks cut off this year if Congress fails to approve a bill allowing extended benefits, reports the state Employment Development Department.

The 1.5 million are all the people currently certified to receive unemployment. Benefits checks have stopped for at least 260,000 so far, say EDD officials.

Efforts in Congress to allow additional extended unemployment benefits have so far failed, victim of partisan bickering over where the money will come from to pay for the aid.

Democrats in the House and Senate hope to vote today on bills that would allow extended unemployment benefits to continue through November, reports the Associated Press.

A growing number of unemployed have been cut off each week since a bill that allowed the more-recently unemployed to collect up to 99 weeks of benefits expired in early June.

Lacking Congressional authorization, EDD stopped paying benefits to about 160,000 people who had completed their initial 26 weeks of unemployment or finished one of the four tiers of extended benefits. Another 100,000 people getting so-called Fed-Ed aid for high unemployment states like California also got cut off.

A new standalone House bill, HR 5618, to extend benefits through Nov. 30 failed on an initial vote Tuesday. House Democrats hope to bring it back for another vote today.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduced a substitute bill that would extend unemployment benefits through Nov. 30 and extend the time period for the homebuyers tax credit to Sept. 30. House members have said they support the homebuyers tax credit.

Reid told AP he was still one vote short of the 60 needed to close debate after the death of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., on Tuesday.

Time for quick action on any bill is short because Congress leaves for its week-long Fourth of July recess after Friday. Both bills must also get the approval of the other house of Congress.

The numbers for Californians who could lose benefits come as the National Employment Law Project estimates 1.2 million people nationwide got kicked off unemployment in June alone because Congress failed to approve the extension.

NELP, an advocate for workers’ rights and the unemployed, has been in the forefront pushing for an extension of unemployment benefits and continuing the government’s 65% subsidy of COBRA health insurance premiums, both of which expired in June.

The organization argues that unemployment payments are not only needed, but put money directly into the economy. NELP cited an analysis by Mark Zandi, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com, who estimated that every dollar of unemployment benefits generates $1.60 in economic growth.

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