The Senate is expected to vote as early as this evening on a bill that could extend unemployment insurance for people whose benefits have run out, the Associated Press reported. President George Bush announced today that he would sign the legislation; the House has already passed the bill.

The vote comes as the Labor Department released a report today that shows the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance rose to more than 4 million last week, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was in recession.

New applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a revised figure of 515,000 the previous week; the new figure is the highest level in 16 years.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it expects the jobless rate to be between 7.1 percent and 7.6 percent next year. The rate in October was 6.5 percent, compared with last year’s average rate of 4.6 percent.