States to send out unemployment extension instructions
In early November, president Obama signed a legislation to extend unemployment benefits by another 13 weeks in most States and by 20 weeks where unemployment rates is 8.5% or more.
Unemployed workers who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits this year should start receiving instructions this week on how to claim the new federal unemployment benefits extension.
The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency is sending letters to some 70,000 to 80,000 jobless workers who may be eligible for the extension approved earlier this month.
There is also the issue of the end-of-the-year filing deadline. The bill signed by Obama earlier this month, H.R. 3548, grants an additional six weeks of unemployment aid to jobless workers who will have exhausted their benefits by the end of 2009 and live in a state with an unemployment rate at or above 8.5 percent. But because the new law treats the 20-week extension as two separate extensions (one of 14 weeks and one of six weeks) with participants required to exhaust the first 14 weeks before applying for the next six, the December 31 application deadline prevents anyone from collecting the full allotment. (The end of the year is seven weeks away, so no one will have exhausted their initial 14 weeks by then.)
Currently, no fix has been introduced. But some members of Congress are open to the possibility of another broad unemployment extension that could address the deadline glitch and provide additional help to those who lose their insurance after the New Year. And it might be housed in the “jobs bill” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) talked up last week, although specifics about the scope of the plan were not announced. Keep an eye out on that front.
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