Obama Signs Extended Unemployment Benefits Into Law

Detroit Free Press

As expected, President Barack Obama this morning signed into law a bill extending benefits for out-of-work Americans who have exhausted their unemployment checks or will do so by year’s end.

In Michigan, more than 100,000 people may eventually be helped by the extension, which provides up to 14 weeks of additional benefits for anyone whose unemployment has already run out or will be exhausted by Dec. 31, 2009.

the national unemployment rate had topped 10% in October, the highest since March 1983.

It doesn’t help people who will run out of benefits in 2010 – though Congress is expected to come back and pass legislation this year that extends that eligibility window into next year.

Obama’s signature makes today the effective date of the bill. The additional benefits are not retroactive, meaning that once recipients who have run out of benefits begin getting checks in mid-December, they will reach back to only Nov. 6.

The House voted Thursday to pass the legislation after waiting weeks for the Senate to move on the bill. Michigan had the highest jobless rate in the nation in September at 15.3%. Today, it was reported that the national unemployment rate had topped 10% in October, the highest since March 1983.

The state Unemployment Insurance Agency projects that as many as 80,000 people will be eligible for the new extension by the time checks begin going out in mid-December. It will take that long for the federal Labor Department and state agencies to identify who is eligible and start sending out extension checks.

The legislation also authorizes an additional six weeks of benefits on top of the 14 weeks for out-of-work residents in the hardest-hit states, including Michigan, but it remains unclear how many people will actually qualify for those extra six weeks under the legislation signed into law by Obama today.

The reason is that a person has to exhaust the new benefit of up to 14 weeks to qualify for those six weeks – even though there are only eight weeks left in the year.

That means it may be available at first to only people who because of their work histories qualify for no more than eight weeks under the extension. Otherwise, it will take another act of Congress to lift the eligibility window past the end of the year to make those extra six weeks widely available.