Updated January 5, 2009

Know Your Rights to the New Federal Extension of Jobless Benefits
By the National Employment Law Project

1.  What is the new temporary program of federal extended benefits?

On November 21, 2008, President Bush signed into law the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 (H.R. 6867), which increases the weeks of benefits available to workers who run out of their state unemployment insurance benefits.  The new program expands on the 13 weeks of benefits previously provided by the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which took effect in July 2008.

2.  How many weeks of EUC benefits are available under the new law?

Under the original EUC program, workers who ran out of their state unemployment benefits and were still looking for work could collect up to 13 weeks of federal jobless benefits (or half of their state benefits, whichever is less).  Under the new law, workers in all states are now entitled to collect up to 20 weeks of EUC benefits (or 80 percent of their state benefits, whichever is less), 7 weeks more than provided under the original EUC program.  Workers in states with high unemployment are entitled to an additional 13 weeks of EUC (or half their state benefits, whichever is less). In total, workers in high unemployment states are thus entitled to 33 weeks of EUC.

3. What if the worker already collected some or all of the orginal 13 weeks of EUC? How many weeks of benefits are they entitled to under the new law?

Those workers who have already collected some or all of their EUC benefits under the original 13-week program are entitled to the benefits provided under the new program minus what they have already collected. For example, workers in a high unemployment state who used up their original 13 weeks of EUC would be entitled to 20 weeks of  additional assistance (totaling 33 weeks).  Workers who used up their original 13 weeks of EUC in all other states would be entitled to 7 weeks of EUC under the new law (or 20 weeks total).

4. When can the worker start collecting the new EUC benefits?  How long will it take the states to process the new EUC applications?

The new law starts to provide benefits for weeks of unemployment that begin as of Sunday, November 23rd.   Workers should expect serious delays by the states in processing the new EUC benefits (see Question 5).  So, it may take several weeks in many states before the new EUC benefits are actually available.  No matter when the state starts providing the benefits, however, all benefits going back to the week of November 23rd should be paid to the worker. 

5. How do workers apply for the new EUC benefits? 

Workers should start applying on November 23rd for the new EUC benefits, unless they are instructed otherwise by the state.  Information on how to apply will be provided either in a notice sent to the worker by the state or on the state’s Labor Department website. 

All workers who have already run out of their original EUC benefits will have to apply again for the new benefits, either by phone, Internet or whatever procedures are available in the individual’s state. Most states are very behind in processing EUC benefits, and they are not equipped to handle the volume of applications coming in over the automated phone claims systems.  If available as an option in the state, it often helps to apply by Internet to avoid the phone delays.

6. What about those workers who already ran out of the first 13 weeks of EUC?  Are they entitled to additional benefits going back to when their original EUC benefits ran out?

No.  Workers who ran out of their original EUC benefits cannot collect the additional weeks of EUC before the new law took effect.  However, as long as these workers are still unemployed and still looking for work, they can collect their full weeks of additional EUC going forward, starting November 23rd.

7. How does the law define which states have high enough unemployment rates to qualify for 33 weeks of EUC benefits?

Any state with an unemployment rate of 6 percent or higher qualifies for the 33 weeks of EUC benefits (that is, 13 weeks more than the 20 weeks provided all states).  However, the law requires the state’s unemployment rate to be above 6 percent by averaging the rate over the latest three-month period. Thus, to qualify for the additional weeks of EUC benefits, it is not enough that the rate was above 6 percent in any given month.

As of November 23rd, there were 20 states (plus the District of Columbia) that qualified as high unemployment states, including:  Alaska, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. With state unemployment rates increasing fast, several more states are likely to qualify for the additional weeks of benefits.

The U.S. Department of Labor publishes an official “trigger notice” each week that lists the three-month average “total unemployment rates” (TUR) for the states (available on-line at http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims_arch.asp).

8. Why are workers in high unemployment state being told they are only eligible for 7 weeks of benefits?  

Workers in high unemployment states are being informed that they are eligible for an additional 7 weeks of benefits, but they expect to be told that they are eligble for an additional 20 weeks of benefits.

The reason is that workers' must first run out of their 7 weeks of additional first tier benefits to be eligible for the 13 weeks of second tier benefits. Workers can only collect the second 13 weeks of benefits if their state is in "triggered on" when the worker exhausts their first tier benefits. Thus workers who exhausted the first extension before 11/21/2008 were only technically eligible for the additional 7 weeks when they first reapplied.  But these workers will indeed collect a full 20 weeks of benefits if they are on the list of high unemployment states found above.

9. What's the deadline to qualify for the EUC program, and when does the program officially end?

The EUC program ends March 28, 2009, which means that no one who runs out of state unemployment after March 2009 will qualify for the program. However, anyone who runs out of their state unemployment benefits before then will qualify for their full 20 or 33 weeks of EUC benefits (all benefits under the program run out August 27, 2009).  Given the worsening unemployment situation, Congress and the President are likely to extend the program beyond the March 2009 deadline.