More Than 200,000 Americans Will Lose Their Unemployment Benefits This Weekend

[MrScorpio]

By Pat Garofalo on May 11, 2012 at 9:35 am

According to a new report from the National Employment Law Project, 230,000 Americans will see their unemployment benefits vanish this weekend, even as the jobless rate remains stubbornly high. Nearly half of those losing their benefits live in California, where the unemployment rate is 11 percent:

Long-term unemployed workers in a growing list of states are being abruptly cut from federal unemployment insurance, a new analysis from the National Employment Law Project shows. Due to reductions Congress enacted earlier this year, more than 400,000 workers in 27 states will have lost between 13 to 20 weeks of federal unemployment insurance under the Extended Benefits program by Saturday, May 12th. The cuts come even though long-term unemployment remains near record highs.

The latest round of cuts that take effect in eight states this Saturday will affect more than 200,000 long-term unemployed workers and account for the biggest number of workers to be hit so far, as states like California, Illinois, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas are all being phased out at the same time. In California, nearly 100,000 workers are being cut from the extended benefits this week.

These cuts are occurring because the formula under which states receive federal funds for extended unemployment benefits stipulates that those funds disappear if the state’s unemployment rate stops increasing. So because California and other states have seen some improvement in their labor situations, their funds vanish. “The Extended Benefits program is being phased out because state unemployment rates have stopped climbing, but unemployment is still exceedingly high in many places,” said NELP Executive Director Christine Owens.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/11/482484/unemployment-benefits-weekend/

[Fumesucker]

1. This goes well with the OP story I think..

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2012/04/the_geography_o.html

[coalition_unwilling]

2. This refers to the 20-week final extension known as FED-ED, I believe.

I found out last week that my benefits are cut off as of today. Nice of EDD to give me no advance notice. I had to call EDD (the handler of UI in California) to find out.

Will force me to settle for a job and boss I hate working for sub-standard pay. If I can find something. Otherwise, I'll have to liquidate my IRAs early.

[EFerrari]

3. And then there is the something like 60% of unemployed workers

who are going through this recession with no UI to be cut off.