Extension of Jobless Benefits

Posted on December 20, 2010 by townsend

• Benefits: Jobless relieved life raft still afloat, By Meghan Barr (AP), December 19, 2010, Washington Post: “Kimberly Smith holds up the piece of paper that is the only thing keeping her from bankruptcy: an application for extended unemployment benefits. She’s not happy that she needs it. And she’s upset that it was nearly taken away. ‘I do deserve it,’ the 49-year-old says. ‘I’ve done everything I could to try and get a job. I tried to get back into the retail industry. I made the effort to, at my age, go back to college.’ President Barack Obama extended unemployment benefits for Smith and millions of other Americans when he signed tax-cut legislation Friday. It helps people who have been out of work more than 26 weeks but less than 99 weeks, though the benefits vary greatly from state to state. They could be just about anybody. People with college degrees and people with no higher education. People who have resorted to living out of their cars. People who have cashed out their retirement savings. People who once held six-figure jobs and people like Smith, who was laid off from her job as a department manager at a jeweler’s a year and a half ago. What unites them is the bitterness in their voices as they talk about how badly they need unemployment benefits – to clothe their children, to pay for heat, to save their homes from foreclosure…”
• Jobless benefits are extended – but hold the applause, By Tami Luhby, December 20, 2010, CNNMoney.com: “Millions of jobless Americans are no doubt cheering the tax cut deal that President Obama signed into law Friday. The legislation provides for 13 more months to apply for extended jobless benefits, but not everyone who’s unemployed will be eligible for these extended benefits. In fact, residents in at least five states won’t have access to the same level of unemployment benefits as their peers nationwide. That’s because the unemployment rate in those states is improving, so, according to federal law, the jobless there can’t receive checks for as long as those in harder-hit states…”