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Next week, the U.S. Senate will address the issue of extending unemployment benefits. With 1.5 million people expected to exhaust benefits before the year's end, this is a critical social issue.

The House passed a similar bill recently. That bill sparked some controversy because it did not extend benefits for people in all 50 states. The Senate version rectifies that perceived injustice. This bill has support in both parties, but Republicans have objected to the cost (why didn't they object to the cost of the Iraq war?) and demanded amendments unlikely to curry favor with Democrats. It should be an interesting negotiation to watch.

At present it is estimated that 7,000 people are exhausting their benefits every day. The Senate bill would extend benefits for 14-20 weeks, but this is still a Band-Aid on the problem. It just pushes the day of reckoning further into the future.

If the job creation picture does not improve significantly in the next few months, we will be in a world of hurt. The Department of Labor's recent report on turnover showed a record low in the ratio of job openings to job seekers: 2.4 million job openings for 15 million job seekers. And, let's face it, those numbers are probably fudged toward the optimistic side. After factoring in things like underemployment and discouragement, the true number might be closer to 30 million. The back of my envelope says somewhere between 30 and 40 million.

What Congress needs to do is figure out a way to create jobs fast. We need a massive infrastructure bill stat.