Obama presses Republicans to extend unemployment insurance --- President Obama pushed Congress to extend unemployment insurance in his weekly address on Saturday, warning that if the benefits expire as scheduled on Dec. 28, job seekers and the economy as a whole will pay the price. -- “The holiday season is a time for remembering the bonds we share, and our obligations to one another as human beings,” he said, “But right now, more than 1 million of our fellow Americans are poised to lose a vital economic lifeline just a few days after Christmas if Congress doesn’t do something about it.” -- Approximately 1.3 million Americans receive unemployment insurance checks as part of a program offered “so that job-seekers don’t fall into poverty, and so that when they get that job, they bounce back more quickly,” the president said. “For many families, it can be the difference between hardship and catastrophe.” -- Far beyond the damage it could do to individual families, the president warned, a failure to extend unemployment benefits could drag down the entire economy, threatening a recovery that finally seems to be gaining traction in the wake of several months of robust job growth. -- “Unemployment insurance is one of the most effective ways there is to boost our economy,” he explained. “When people have money to spend on basic necessities, that means more customers for our businesses and, ultimately, more jobs.” -- To bolster his case, the president cited two studies: One, from the Congressional Budget Office, predicted “that allowing benefits to expire will be a drag on our economic growth next year,” the president said. The other, a report from the Department of Labor and the president's Council of Economic Advisers, estimated that a failure to extend benefits could cost businesses 240,000 jobs in 2014. - More, Jake Miller - CBSNEWS