Unemployment Extended

[preciousjeni]

Good news for a lot of people:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BUJS11IP4B.DTL

People who have exhausted their state unemployment benefits but are still jobless could get up to 13 weeks of additional benefits under a bill signed this week by President Bush.

But scary still:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...5Ym-wD91LUIM00

Unemployment requirements are rigid and the benefits are minimal, but they keep many people afloat. I am a bit confused though...I thought the stimulus payouts were approved in place of things like extending unemployment. Does anyone know what happened there?

[33girl]

I don't recall hearing about the stimulus payments being for anything other than to stimulate the economy - I never heard unemployment mentioned.

[preciousjeni]

It was when they were going round and round about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/wa.../25fiscal.html

And Speaker Nancy Pelosi ultimately bowed to Mr. Bush’s insistence that the package not include extending unemployment benefits or increasing food stamps.

I'm still not sure exactly what was included in the final decision.

[AGDee]

I'm confused because I had always heard that the company that laid you off had to pay your unemployment. I obviously have to research this more.

[preciousjeni]

Companies pay into an unemployment fund of sorts, but they aren't really paying enough to sustain the level of unemployment we're facing right now. But, there's not much else to do but extend the benefits because so many people are out of work.

[AGDee]

I did my research. I was primarily puzzled because you do hear of employers fighting an employees eligibility and I wondered why in the world they would care if it wasn't coming out of their pockets. The rate that they pay into the unemployment increases if they have more employees being paid out than they are paying in. So, it's like insurance really.. when you file a claim, your rates go up.

What they pay for unemployment sure wouldn't keep my family going for any length of time. My mortgage payment is more than the max that they pay monthly. I'd be out there trying to get as many jobs as I could rather than accept the max unemployment benefit.