Extended Unemployment Benefit Checks Reaching Jobless Workers Soon (Posted July 1, 2008)

In a major victory after a tenacious fight by unemployed workers and their allies, the President signed a war supplemental bill on June 30th that includes an extension of jobless benefits for long-term unemployed workers, called Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC). 

Under the bill (H.R. 2642), workers still unable to find jobs after having exhausted their regular state benefits will be eligible for up to 13 weeks of extended federal benefits (or half their state benefits, whichever is less).   The measure reaches back to cover still-unemployed workers who first filed for their state unemployment benefits on May 7, 2006, or later. The program will remain in effect for workers exhausting their state benefits through March 2009. 

States unemployment offices have begun gearing up to distribute checks to eligible workers, though when those checks actually turn around will vary depending on the state application process.  Some states will automatically enroll jobless workers as they exhaust their state benefits, while others will require beneficiaries to apply separately for the extension.  No matter how long it takes the states to get the application process going, EUC benefits will be paid for any weeks of unemployment that began after July 6, 2008. 

Also significant, the federal bill includes an extra $110 million in administrative funding to help fill the serious funding gap that has plagued most state unemployment insurance programs.  This infusion of funds is on top of the administrative funding the states will receive to process extended benefits claims. 

NELP estimates that over 900,000 eligible jobless workers have already exhausted their state benefits and will immediately begin collecting extended benefits, once their states’ programs are in place.  An additional 2.7 million jobless workers will likely exhaust their state benefits without finding work between now and the program’s expiration next March.  Altogether, the extension will help more than 3.5 million long-term jobless workers make ends meet and pump billons of dollars back into the struggling economy, in a spur to job growth.  

NELP will soon post an Extension Q&A on this website and on www.unemployedworkers.org, to help workers navigate the claims process.