If you haven't heard by now, there is a fast-growing group of unemployed Americans who call themselves the 99ers. These are the unemployed workers who have exhausted all of their regular unemployment insurance benefits, all Emergency Unemployment (EUC) and all State Extended Benefits - a maximum of 99 weeks, depending on the unemployment rate in a given state.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment [CDLE] has reported that there are currently 16,184 unemployment insurance claimants who have no EUC or SEB money remaining; they have exhausted all of the unemployment benefits available to them. In Colorado, the maximum number of weeks an unemployed worker can collect benefits is 86 versus the 99 weeks allowed in states with higher levels of unemployment. Colorado did not qualify for Tier 4 benefits provided under EUC.
The CDLE has also indicated that some of these 16,184 claimants could potentially be eligible to receive an additional 7 weeks of benefits under something called 'SEB2' or High Extended Benefits (HEB) . This is apparently a new level of extended benefits available at the option of the state when the unemployment rate hit certain levels (a 3-month average of 8.0%).
The CDLE has not yet received all of the details and eligibility requirements from the Department of Labor with respect to the new legislation which extended benefit eligibility dates through November 30, 2010. Cher Haavind of the CDLE has indicated that not everyone will qualify and that it will take approximately 2-4 weeks for the CDLE to implementation the new HEB program.
As noted in a previous article, the CDLE has also reported that there are currently 4,100 unemployed Colorado workers that were collecting unemployment insurance benefits provided under Tier 3 when the EUC program expired on June 2, 2010. These claimants will be paid retroactively for any weeks they had remaining under Tier 3 (which provided an additional 13 weeks of EUC benefits) as June 2.
Once they have collected the full 13 weeks of Tier 3 benefits, all 4,100 of these claimants will join the group of 16,184 99ers in Colorado, bringing the number of unemployed workers in Colorado who have exhausted their benefits, to over 20,000 in the coming weeks and months.
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Comments
Thanks for your support in the fight for the unemployed exhaustee's! I am a Michigander I've been through 3 plant closings in the last 12 years! I have lost everything! Mike Thornton had you on his sight and now you will be included in my favorites tab! God Bless!!
#2 cont.-Yet the politicians are trying to BUY your votes, by extending them JUST THROUGH NOvember. Elections are????????????
THEN not only the 99ers, but the unemployed in whole, will be SOL.
Unemployment in today's economy, should extend until the unemployment figures are under 6.5%.
This would not only extend a life line to the unemployed, but enable them to pay their bills, to keep those still employed, employed. If they are continuously denied benefits, YOUR job WILL be affected. Even if you work for your relatives
Go site: unemployed-friends.com (with the dash) for info.
#1-The 99ers have been considered the parasites feeding off of road kill. Not only by those still employed through their inner fear they could become one of us----but the current unemployed who will certainly become one of us.
I ask of you skeptics, when someone calls or visits YOUR place of employment and asks if you are accepting applications for employment...exactly WHAT is your response? The answer tells the truth.
And if truth be told, the answer is no.
Those being helped through this 4213 bill, will be falling off of those tiers, to become 99ers...millions before elections.
continued....
After that I don't know what I will do. I know if I'm still around in November I will vote out as many crooked heartless politicians as I can. I am not holding my breath for tier 5 for I know that it will not pass. Just get ready!
What happens when 20+ million unemployed people and tens of millions who receive some form of government assistance each month suddenly receive no money? How safe will America be? How angry will people become? Can you imagine long lines of people standing outside Walmart begging for food? Can you imagine being robbed at gun point for groceries as you exit a food store? Can you imagine gangs holding "gated communities" hostage within their gates until their financial demands are met? Can you image hospitals and doctors offices closed because there is no insurance and people cannot pay actual costs? When the government tells a huge number of people they will no longer receive government assistance, what choices will they have for survival? Consider Greece agai
Yes this going to become national tragedy. The unemployment numbers are complete utter non-sense. If you count those that have fallen off unemployment and those that did not qualify in the first place (1099 workers or workers that didn't qualify quarterly) the numbers would be around 30-40%. These are the numbers that they don't want Wall Street to know since it would cause widespread panic and sell-off. That is the true numbers but they hide them like the plague. The other skewed number is that I keep hearing the politicians saying that there is only 1 job for every 5 applicants. What a joke! I'm sure all of you know that is complete non-sense also. I recently finally got a call back from a potential employer that I had found online. He told me he had run the ad that morning at 8:00 am and by 11:30 am he had received 213 resumes. He stated that because of that he picked me out of the first 20 for an interview. That is the true numbers. I have 3 more checks left on my fourth tier.
I bet the 16,200 number is increasing rapidly. I would think the government would put programs in place to put the unemployed back to work and to benefit the nation. Of course, I am a rational person who cares about people and that is opposite to the way the government thinks.
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