The House passed a bill on Wednesday to help unemployed veterans seeking jobs as well as federal contractors facing a new tax burden in 2013.
The House voted 422 to 0 on Wednesday to pass the first and, so far, only piece of President Obama’s jobs package to get out of Congress. The Senate passed the bill with 95 senators voting unanimously last week.
President Obama is expected to sign the bill.
Lawmakers are touting the bill as a bipartisan jobs creator that is fully paid for and would even reduce federal deficits by $2 billion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The bill gives employers tax credits of up to $5,600 for hiring veterans who have been unemployed longer than six months. It would also give employers a tax credit of up to $9,600 for hiring long-unemployed disabled veterans.
The October unemployment rate for veterans who left the military after 2001 was 12.1%, leaving about 240,000 veterans out of work, according to the White House. The measure to help veterans is a small piece of President Obama’s job package.
The bill also expands an education and jobs retraining program for unemployed veterans. And it creates a new project that directs the Labor Department to figure out ways for veterans to use their specialized training to get licenses in different fields in the civilian work force.
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