Unemployment extension for 13 months was passed a few days ago and signed in to law by President Obama. This gives no Tier 5 for 99ers but it also may not automatically give a tier 3 or tier 4 unemployment extension for millions of the unemployed.
I have received some comments from, Cypress Gang, with concern that I have not said enough about this part of the unemployed. I do thank him for bringing this to my attention. I have in some of my other articles given a list of states that were "eligible" for select months for these extensions. So if someone were to check and their state wasn't listed that usually meant their state was "not" eligible.
The basic way the unemployment system works is when a person becomes unemployed they can receive up to 26 weeks of benefits from their state. After the 26 weeks end then they go into a federal program for extensions. This program consists of up to 53 weeks of compensation and for some an additional 20 weeks of benefits which brings the potential number of weeks to 99 which includes the original 26 weeks of state benefits. The additional weeks from the federal program are what make up the 4 tiers.
All of the extended weeks are tied to the unemployment rate for each state. So depending on which state you live in you may not qualify for the unemployment extension.
So to get a tier 3 unemployment extension which can last up to thirteen weeks your state must have an unemployment rate of 6% or more for 3 months. To move into the tier 4 your state must have a rate of 8.5% for 3 months. Extended benefits within these groups are based on a formula that is more complicated and is tied in with other gauges of unemployment.
From the list that came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I have separated out the states that had at least 8.5% unemployment, the states with at least 6% - 8.4% and then the ones with less then 6% for November. (Please make note that this is only the rates by state for one month and not for the 3 months in a row which is needed to qualify).
States that had 8.5% or higher unemployment in November 2010:
Nevada, California, Michigan, Florida, Rhode Island, Oregon, South Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Arizona, Idaho, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, Alabama, Connecticut, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Mexico.
States that had 6% to 8.4%:
Delaware, New York, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Texas, Alaska, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Utah, Maryland, Maine, Montana, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Kansas, Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming and Hawaii.
The following states are all below 6%:
Vermont, New Hampshire, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.
So as you can see from this information it basically shows that there are still probably millions of the unemployed who will not be getting an unemployment extension that aren't even 99ers.
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