Thursday, June 4, 2009

Emergency Unemployment Compensation

For anyone who's run out of regular unemployment, the federal government offers up to 33 weeks of emergency unemployment compensation (thank goodness!).

How do you obtain this? Ideally, your state unemployment agency will send you an application for emergency unemployment compensation approximately two weeks before your regular unemployment runs out. However, I've been told that these forms can sometimes be sent out a few weeks after your regular unemployment runs out. Yikes! My advice: go to your local unemployment office and collect the form on the off-chance that you're one of the ones who falls through the cracks and has a few week gap in your unemployment benefits!

If your application is accepted, you can keep claiming unemployment benefits as you were before. The same number of employer contacts and job log recording is required. Reporting can usually be done online or via phone, depending upon your state.

It's great to have the additional $25 per week from the feds also; thankfully, many states, such as Washington, have increased the weekly benefit as well. How long will it take for this extra money to give our economy a small push in the right direction? Hopefully, this will allow more individuals and families to hold out just a bit longer until employment is found again.

Until next time, hang in there!

HD

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