By Lee A. Daniels

Breaking a two-months-long partisan deadlock, the Senate Tuesday voted to restore unemployment benefits to the more than 2 million jobless workers who have been out of work for at least six months.

The vote, on a near-complete party-line basis, makes it all but certain that benefits checks will soon be in the hands of American workers whose circumstances have been made increasingly desperate by the country’s stark mismatch between available jobs and those seeking work.

The House of Representatives, with its sizeable Democratic majority is expected to easily approve the measure and send it to President Obama for his signature as early as Wednesday.

There are about 14.6 million Americans out of work and very few jobs for them. According to data compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, the ratio of workers to job openings stands now at 4.7 to 1. Such a disparity – which has been greater in the thirty months since the Great Recession began – is unprecedented in modern times. During 2007 the ratio averaged 1.5 to 1. During the recession of 2001 the ratio of jobless workers to job openings peaked at just 2.8 to 1.

Given that the scant record of job-creation during this recession is all but certain to continue, continually pushing the number of the long-term jobless to new record highs, the political battle fought this week in the Senate will be repeated.

Lee A. Daniels is Director of Communications for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, and Editor-in-Chief of TheDefendersOnline.