Unemployment checks are coming to a cease for those most in need of them. Many of those who fall in the category of longtime unemployed are receiving their final unemployment benefits starting this month. Despite Congress' renewal of extended benefits scheduled to end at the end of the year, the last of these checks keep being issued without promise of any further financial assistance.
In the coming month, around 70,000 people are said to loss their unemployment benefits. The expectation is that a total of over 100,000 people are to have their benefits taken from them.
Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project states, "The Extended Benefits program is being phased out because state unemployment rates have stopped climbing, but unemployment is still exceedingly high in many places. Job openings are not taking the place of these cuts".
Upon the recession, the unemployed were promised at least 99 weeks of benefits with payment of up to $362 per month. With the renewal of the plan this past February, Congress decreased the number of weeks of benefits that the unemployed would receive and made the process of getting aid much more difficult for states to attain. According to the New York Times those out of work in almost half of the 50 states have been stripped of almost 5 months of the benefits they were promised.
Places like Florida are even making it more difficult for the employed to qualify for these benefits by denying large numbers of applicants and decreasing the amount of weeks they will agree to cover those in need of this service.
According to an analysis by the National Employment Law Project, "The ongoing expirations of the Extended Benefits program will soon push the percentage of unemployed receiving some form of unemployment benefit to less than one in two".
