Falling off jobless rolls

Last week, nearly 4,000 laid-off Californians exhausted their maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, according to the Employment Development Department. The week before it was around 3,900. Expect those numbers to keep going up as more folks become ineligible for more aid - and don't expect much help from Washington. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow has been pushing legislation to provide an additional 20 weeks of benefits, along with beefed-up tax incentives for employers to hire the unemployed. But it's not looking good - there's virtually no chance it'll come up before Congress recesses at the end of the month, and if the Republicans do well in the mid-terms, it's hard to see the Democrats scrounging up the necessary votes. Even extending the 99-week limit past Nov. 30 will be a challenge. All told, about 183,000 people in the state are no longer eligible for aid. From the OC Register:

Part of the reason the number is so large and growing is that Orange County and other parts of California started losing jobs well before the U.S. recession officially began in December 2007. In addition, hard-hit industries like construction and real estate, where thousands were once employed, have yet to bounce back. Orange County alone lost 10,300 construction, finance and other real estate-related jobs from July 2009 to this July.