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Jobless benefits will run out for 2 million people during the holiday season unless they are renewed by a Congress that’s focusing more attention on a quarrel over preserving tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year.
It’s looking iffy at best whether Congress will renew jobless benefits averaging $310 per week nationwide that are presently claimed by almost 5 million people who have been out of work for more than six months.
An extension of jobless benefits enacted this summer expires Dec. 1, and on Thursday, a bill to extend them for three months failed in the House.
Democrats brought the bill to the floor under fast-track rules that required a two-thirds vote to pass. Republicans opposed the legislation because they were denied a chance to attach spending cuts, so the measure fell despite winning a 258-154 majority.
In Thursday’s vote, 21 Republicans joined with Democrats in favor. Eleven moderate-to-conservative Democrats opposed the bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised to bring the measure back to the floor after Thanksgiving to try to enact an emergency measure that extend benefits at least through the holidays.
The devil’s in the details. Not only do states have different statutes of limitations for different debts, but two states may treat the same debts differently. A credit card debt might be considered an open-ended account in one state and a written contract in another. The only way to know for sure is to check your state laws or consult an attorney.
You can inadvertently restart the clock. Generally, the statute of limitations starts ticking from the “date of last activity” on the accounts, said Los Angeles bankruptcy attorney Scott Bovitz. (If the account is still listed in your credit reports, the date of last activity should be noted there.) On a credit card debt, that could be the last payment you made or the last purchase you charged. But in some states, making a payment on an old debt, agreeing to an extended repayment plan or even acknowledging that the debt is yours can extend the statute of limitations or restart the clock.
A creditor may still sue you after the statute of limitations has run out. Suing or threatening to sue you after the statute of limitations has run out violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. To prevent the creditor from winning a judgment against you, you’ll need to show up in court and point out that the statute has expired.
The creditor may try to pick a better venue. If you sign a credit contract and move to a state with different limits, the creditor may try to sue you in the state that has the longer statute. If that’s not the state in which you now live, you should protest, because generally the state where you reside is the one whose statutes should apply.
Debts can still exist even if the creditor can’t sue. Some people erroneously believe that debts are erased after the statute of limitations has run out. Although the creditor’s ability to sue you has been curtailed, it can still try other methods to persuade you to pay, including calls and letters. The debt can also be sold to another collector that can renew efforts to get you to pay. A legitimate debt is truly gone only when it’s paid or erased in bankruptcy court.
Collectors can’t legally restart the seven-year clock by “re-aging” the debt (giving it a new delinquency date) or by selling it to another agency. The Federal Trade Commission shut down one large collection agency, Capital Acquisitions and Management, after charging the company repeatedly had re-aged debts in its attempts to collect.
The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband.
One third, or about 35 million homes, don’t have broadband. That affects people’s ability to educate themselves and find and apply for jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.
“The broadband adoption gap in the U.S. is very large, and the costs of digital exclusion are high and getting higher,” Genachowski said.
The initiative, called Connect-to-Compete, also includes Microsoft Corp., which pledges to sell PCs with its Office software suite for $250 to low-income families. A firm called Redemtech is offering to sell refurbished computers for $150, including shipping.
For those who can’t afford those prices, Morgan Stanley is pledging to develop a microfinance lending program for community-based financial institutions.
People are still signing up for broadband, but growth has slowed in recent years. For those who still haven’t signed up, cost is a minor factor. Most say they’re simply not interested or don’t need it, according to a report by the Commerce Department based on Census Bureau data from last year.
To help address the lack of interest and computer skills, Best Buy Co., Microsoft and nonprofits such as America’s Promise Alliance and United Way are promising to support the initiative with training.
All major cable companies are standing behind the $9.95 offer, which will be valid for two years. The price doesn’t include taxes, but the companies are pledging to charge nothing for installation or modem rental.
The minimum download speed will be 1 megabit per second, less than one tenth of average cable speeds. Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said it will be up to the individual cable companies to decide what speeds they provide.
The NCTA estimates that about 5.5 million homes that don’t have broadband will be eligible for the offer. According to the Commerce Department study, 78 percent of households with school-age children already have broadband, making them far more likely to be connected than the average household.
The big broadband gap is between younger and older households: Only 45 percent of people older than 64 have broadband. Black and Hispanic households were less likely to have broadband, even when adjusting for income, according to the study.
Comcast Corp., the largest cable company and the country’s largest Internet service provider, is already offering broadband to $9.95 to low-income families, with a 1.5 megabit per second download speed. It offered to do that to get regulators to approve its acquisition of NBC Universal approved.
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