For Highlands Ranch resident Margaret Miales, Sen. Jim Bunning’s decision to drop his filibuster and allow a vote on extending jobless benefits will come just in time.
Without the extension, benefits for the divorced mother of five would have evaporated in the next few weeks. About 60,000 Coloradans were in a similar position.
“I’m terrified,” Miales said Tuesday afternoon before Bunning changed his mind.
Her family would likely lose their home without the support.
“We have nowhere to go, and it’s very hard to sleep on people’s couches when you have five kids,” Miales said.
The block caused by Bunning, R-Ky., also held up Medicare funding, transportation projects and health care benefits.
When Miales realized she could lose her benefits, she began calling her representatives, including Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo.
“For the life of me, I can’t understand why we wouldn’t extend unemployment benefits in this tough economic environment,” Udall said.
Almost half the roughly $900 the Miales family receives in unemployment benefits goes to COBRA health care payments. Two of Miales’ children have health problems that make the plan a must.
A severe case of West Nile virus several years ago, exacerbated by birth defects, left Miales’ oldest daughter easily susceptible to illness.
After a year in a motorized wheelchair and two brain surgeries, her daughter remains weak.
“Her health is still very precarious,” which leads to frequent hospital stays, Miales said.
A son has severe asthma. Over Christmas break, both children were hospitalized simultaneously, leaving their mom running between hospital rooms trying to comfort them.
Miales, a 2000 graduate of Colorado State University with a degree in political science and a minor in economics, never expected to be in such dire straits.
The experience has left her feeling humiliated and invisible, she said.
When Miales was laid off from her job at Educational Sales Management in April, she tried to look at it as an opportunity to find something better.
“But as I started pounding the pavement, I just could not find work,” Miales said.
Until last week, federal legislation passed since the beginning of the economic crunch allowed eligible applicants to receive up to 86 weeks of unemployment benefits, said Steve Fowler, director of Colorado’s unemployment-insurance program.
The legislative standstill threatened to sever thousands of people from benefits well before the full period ran out.
Heather McWilliams: 303-954-1698 or hmcwilliams@denverpost.com
