Senate negotiators struck a bipartisan deal Thursday that would renew federal unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless, allowing for retroactive payments to go to more than 2 million Americans whose benefits expired in late December. 
 
 Ten senators, evenly divided among Democrats and Republicans, announced the pact and set up a timeline in which the legislation could pass the Senate in late March. 
 
 Its outcome in the House remains up in the air, however. Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who has opposed previous Senate plans as insufficient in providing offsetting cuts, did not offer a statement on the new proposal. 
 
 With 55 members of the Democratic caucus supporting an extension of unemployment benefits, the five Republican supporters of the legislation provide just enough votes to clear the 60-vote hurdle needed to pass the legislation. 
 
 “It has now been 75 days since UI expired, and it needs to be renewed. We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is a bipartisan breakthrough,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the lead sponsor of the legislation, said in a statement. 
 
 View Graphic Who are the long-term unemployed? 
 
 “I’m pleased that we’ve reached an agreement that will get a sufficient number of Republican votes,” lead Republican negotiator Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) told reporters. 
 
 Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) signaled that the legislation would create a five-month extension of the federal benefits plan for the jobless, backdating the extension to late December, when the program expired. It will run through the end of May, if it passes the House and is signed into law. 
 
 The bill would effectively restart a key aid program for long-term unemployed workers whose jobless benefits went beyond state limits, which are about 26 weeks with some variation for each state. 
 
 The roughly $10 billion cost of the renewed federal jobless benefits would be offset by extending fees on goods coming through U.S. Customs and an alteration to the way corporations contribute to pensions, the senators announced. 
 
 In addition, the legislation will include two changes to the unemployment program, one of which will require more job training for long-term jobless workers in order to continue receiving insurance benefits. Also, the legislation includes a provision that eliminates state or federal unemployment benefits for laid-off workers whose gross income the previous year topped $1 million — which, according to federal estimates, represented 0.03 percent of all recipients. 
 
 Some Republicans involved in the discussions felt that the additional reforms to the unemployment program were insufficient, involving something akin to a promise of more changes to the unemployment program down the line. 
 
 “We’ve heard too many promises from this administration to buy in to that,” said Sen. Daniel Coats (R-Ind.), who has been involved in the talks but declined to co-sponsor the new deal. 
 
 Thursday’s announcement capped 21 / 2 months of talks in the Senate that began in earnest in early January after the law for the federal emergency unemployment program expired. Those extra benefits began late in the George W. Bush administration, as the Great Recession began, and have continued throughout the Obama administration. 
 
 For years, those extra federal jobless benefits won congressional approval without any offsetting spending cuts, but by late last year Republicans said that the unemployment program should no longer be considered “emergency” spending and should instead be brought into the normal portion of the budget. 
 
 That set off a long debate and weeks of closed-door negotiations, led by Reed and Heller, who represent the two states with the worst unemployment rates in the nation. 
 
 The issue of handling long-term jobless workers has become a key fault line in the national economy. Experts are struggling to find ways to get unemployed workers back into the economy, given that many of those who have lost their jobs come from industries that are disappearing from the United States. 
 
 Additionally, with Congress otherwise gridlocked on how to boost the economy, unemployment insurance payments represented one of the only forms of stimulus that the federal government is providing as job creation remains stagnant. ||||| Senators struck a bipartisan deal on Thursday to revive expired long-term jobless benefits following months of dramatic stops and starts on the issue. 
 
 After an afternoon of frantic negotiations, five senators from each party announced a deal that should finally deliver 60 votes necessary for the aid package to pass the Senate, barring procedural snags. 
 
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 The behind-the-scenes horse-trading was so furious that the deal was not finalized until minutes before the 4:15 p.m. announcement. Many senators were unaware that their colleagues had just struck an agreement on jobless aid that has evaded the Senate for weeks. 
 
 (Earlier on POLITICO: Senate UI vote unlikely this week) 
 
 The negotiations were led by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), each hailing from states with high unemployment. They were joined by GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk of Illinois and Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Dick Durbin of Illinois. 
 
 Buy-in from progressive Democrats like Booker, Brown and Merkley illustrates a broad well of Democratic support for the bill, which lawmakers hope can prematurely quell any rebellion by liberals over concerns that too much was given to the GOP. 
 
 The White House praised the compromise several hours after the announcement. 
 
 “It’s the right thing to do for our economy. The President urges the Senate to pass the bill and for the House to do the same so that he can sign it into law,” press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. 
 
 (Earlier on POLITICO: And the GOP economic plan is...?) 
 
 It will be awhile before the package sees a vote. The jobless aid package will be considered in late March after the Senate returns from its St. Patrick’s Day recess — though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said aid to Ukraine will be the first order of business on March 24. And the legislation still must go through a conservative House, where aides to Speaker John Boehner declined to offer an assessment of the Senate deal on Thursday. 
 
 If it passes, the deal could be a mixed blessing for Democrats by depriving them — for a couple months at least — of a potent election-year weapon against Republicans: that the GOP doesn’t care about the unemployed. Republicans, meanwhile, claimed that it was Reid who was obstructing a deal with his tight grip over the Senate floor. 
 
 The compromise would retroactively restore for five months long-term unemployment benefits that expired on Dec. 28. The bill would be paid for by an extension of U.S. Customs fees established by the recent budget deal through 2024 and by making changes to federal pension programs over the next 10 years. The legislation would prohibit millionaires and billionaires from getting unemployment benefits and also provide for enhanced job training and placement programs. 
 
 But deal-seeking Republicans didn’t get everything they wanted. Notably absent were Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), who engaged in negotiations with Democrats but were not listed as co-sponsors of the legislation. Coats, the most conservative senator involved in the debate, said he was eventually “frozen out.” 
 
 Coats said negotiators would not include his language that would have denied unemployment benefits to those that have received “suitable” job offers. He rejected an offer that would have launched a study into his suitability language and said the dispute would make it hard for him to ultimately support the bill. 
 
 “I’ll give it one final look,” Coats said. “If you conclude I’m a ‘no,’ that’s a pretty good conclusion.” 
 
 Ayotte said that she hopes for a chance to continue to beef up the reforms in the bill. 
 
 ”My hope is there will be further debate and opportunities to amend this proposal and add real reforms to ensure that it better helps the chronically unemployed get back on the job,” Ayotte said through a spokeswoman on Friday morning. 
 
 The legislation appears destined to skate through the Senate by the barest of margins if all 55 Democratic Caucus members vote with the five currently supportive Republicans in order to break a filibuster of the bill. 
 
 Reed and Heller said they were confident the agreement would be one that can pass the Senate, though they still must deal with shepherding the bill through a chamber where controversial amendments have derailed plenty of bipartisan legislation. 
 
 “We want to get it done and we want to get it done in a timely way,” Reed said. 
 
 Kirk, one of the Republican sponsors of the legislation, said he was hopeful the bill could pass the Senate but added: “Sometimes you ask me to get into the head of Harry Reid. It’s really tough.” 
 
 Democrats have highlighted the expired unemployment benefits to slam Republicans as being unsympathetic to those still struggling in the economy. But Republicans claimed Democrats were blocking their amendments, resulting in a months-long impasse on the issue that saw several false starts. 
 
 Reid has brought unemployment legislation to the floor several times this year. But Republicans blocked it each time, concerned over how the legislation’s cost would be covered and angry over Reid’s procedural clampdown. 
 
 Manu Raju contributed to this report.
– Long-term unemployed people who lost their benefits at the end of last year now have hope of getting that money after all. A group of bipartisan senators struck a deal today to extend the benefits for five months, retroactive to December, reports Politico. Because five Republicans already have signed on to the deal, it should have enough votes to clear the full Senate, reports the Washington Post. Whether it can clear the House, however, is a dicier proposition. Under the deal, the $10 billion cost would be offset in part by US Customs fees. “It has now been 75 days since UI expired, and it needs to be renewed," says one of the lead negotiators, Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island. "We’re not at the finish line yet, but this is a bipartisan breakthrough."