Unemployment benefits 101: When will your state cut off extended benefits?

Congress is nearing a deal to extend long-term unemployment benefits to the end of the year. But many states plan to cut off the benefits well before Dec. 31. 

|
Jason Reed/REUTERS
President Obama delivers a statement pushing Congress to extend unemployment benefits to the end of 2012 in Washington Tuesday.
|
Rich Clabaugh/Staff
When states will stop offering extended benefits.

For some long-term unemployed, news that congressional negotiators have worked out a deal to extend long-term unemployment benefits through the end of the year will be less significant than it appears. 

Regardless of Tuesday's agreement on Capitol Hill, many states are set to pare back extended benefits well before the end of the year, due to the formulas by which they determine benefits. 

In short, state formulas say that extended unemployment benefits – those that currently take effect after 79 weeks of unemployment – will only be offered if state unemployment is 10 percent higher than it was in the same quarter any time in the past three years.

Congressional negotiators could have changed this, extending the look-back period to four years – when the unemployment rate was much lower. They decided not to do so.

Many states had already eliminated paying extended benefits of up to 99 weeks because their unemployment rate had dipped below the required threshold. On Saturday, two more states – Maine and Michigan – will stop paying extended benefits. By the end of June, 25 more states will be eliminating the 99 weeks of benefits.

By the end of the year, if Congress approves the deal, the states with the highest unemployment rates will be capping their benefits at 73 weeks.

The National Employment Law Project puts the number of people on extended benefits at 512,463.

For a complete list of when states will stop offering extended unemployment benefits when, click on the chart above and to the left.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Unemployment benefits 101: When will your state cut off extended benefits?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2012/0215/Unemployment-benefits-101-When-will-your-state-cut-off-extended-benefits
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe