Published: November 23, 2010
Unemployed Workers
National Employemt Law Project Blog

If Congress Fails to Act: Fact Sheet on the Cut-Off of Federal Unemployment Benefits

By Goerge Wentworth and Christine Riordan

Perhaps we could title this post 'Thinking the Unthinkable (Redux)', but only a tiny window remains for Congress to renew the federal unemployment insurance programs before the expiration deadline Tuesday, November 30. This fact sheet details how different workers will be impacted by the cutoff of benefits if the programs are allowed to lapse or expire.

Understanding the Cut- off of Federal Unemployment Benefits

The 2 federal unemployment benefit programs – Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) and Extended Benefits (EB) - will start phasing out if Congress does not take action to continue the programs by November 30, 2010. If Congress does not act, up to 2 million jobless workers will face the cut off of federal jobless benefits by the end of December 2010.

Here we explain the timing and impact of cut-offs on different workers if the programs are allowed to lapse or expire. You can also view the essential information in chart form (PDF) here.

Regular Benefits
Saturday November 20th, 2010— Workers who exhaust their 26 weeks of regular state unemployment benefits with a week ending after this date will receive no federally-funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC). In some states, these workers may have some weeks of Extended Benefits (EB) available. See “Federal Extended Benefits” section below.

Emergency Unemployment Compensation Benefits (EUC)
Saturday November 27th, 2010— Workers on Tiers 1, 2 or 3 of Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits cannot move on to the next tier of EUC benefits if they exhaust their current EUC tier in any week ending after this date. They can only finish whatever weeks they have left on their current tier of benefits. For example, if a worker collects her eighth week of EUC Tier 2 with the week ending November 27th, she will be able to collect the balance of her Tier 2 benefits; since Tier 2 normally provides up to 14 weeks of benefits, the worker will be able to collect 6 more weeks of EUC.

Federal Extended Benefits (EB)
The federal-state extended benefits program which pays the last 13 or 20 weeks of benefits presents major complications. This program is an interaction between federal and state EB laws, and as a result, the specifics of the program phase-out will vary by state.

Group 1: Saturday December 4th, 2010 - Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, New York. Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Workers on EB in these states will be immediately cut off of all benefits with payment for the week ending December 4th. Unlike EUC, workers will NOT be able to continue collecting their whole EB entitlement. For example, a worker in one of these states with 10 weeks of EB left as of December 4th will lose entitlement to those remaining weeks.

Group 2: Saturday December 11th, 2010-Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Nevada, Virginia, Wisconsin. Workers on EB in these states will be immediately cut off of all benefits with payment for the week ending December 11th.

Group 3: Saturday December 25th, 2010 – Massachusetts. Under Mass law, EB recipients can keep collecting Extended Benefits all the way through the week ending December 25th.

Group 4: Saturday January 1st, 2010 – Michigan. Extended Benefits recipients can keep collecting EB all the way through the week ending January 1st in Michigan.

Special rights: If you live in a state listed in Group 2, 3 or 4, you should not be cut off before the dates listed above regardless of your status. Based on the rules for extended jobless benefits, all workers who have exhausted any other rights to UI benefits – the 26 weeks of state benefits or a tier of EUC - have a legal right to collect some number of weeks of EB. It is our hope that these states will automatically move these claimants on to EB— temporarily delaying their cut off of benefits with the hope that Congress will act and avoid and interruption of benefits.

Group 5: The Special States: Alaska, Connecticut, Kansas, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington. Unlike the other states above, these states have permanent state laws that always guarantee extensions when the unemployment rate is above a certain percentage, regardless of what Congress does. These states are special cases:

All workers exhausting regular state or any tier of EUC benefits should be moved on to EB for a full 20 weeks of EB entitlement; in Kansas and Minnesota, there are only 13 weeks of EB available.
Workers in these states will be allowed to collect their full weeks of EB, unlike the other states in group 1 to group 4 who will be subjected to a cut- off prompted by the expiration of federal law on November 30th.

We hope this clarifies the impact of the cut off of jobless benefits in your states. This explanation is simplified and should not be construed as legal advice, and you should raise any specific questions with your state unemployment insurance agency.