The amendment, offered by Rep. George Miller of California, passed in the House by a vote of 227-179.  

“This extension of unemployment benefits the House passed Wednesday will provide much-needed relief to the 8.4 million Americans who are unemployed, including over 128,000 Arkansans,” said Ross. “When those who are unemployed are looking for work, at the very least they deserve to have the peace of mind of knowing that their own health and the health of their family is taken care of. I am proud that my colleagues and I succeeded in passing this extension.”

The bill is on its way to the U.S. Senate.  Before the extension of benefits takes effect, the Senate must pass the bill and the President must sign the legislation into law.

The need to extend unemployment benefits is great.  The federal unemployment program expired at the end of the year, denying assistance to approximately 80,000-90,000 people nationwide each week since December 21 and leaving those out of work who ran out of state unemployment benefits over the holidays without any federal help.  

An estimated 375,000 unemployed individuals exhausted their regular unemployment benefits in January without qualifying for any further assistance - and are receiving neither a paycheck or unemployment benefits.  Furthermore, based on the latest data, nearly two million unemployed workers are expected to be in this situation during the first six months of 2004.  Long-term unemployment has tripled to the second highest level in almost 10 years and stands at 1.9 million.