Unemployment extension tiers explained

I've heard and read a lot of conflicting information on the status of the unemployment extensions. One thing is for certain - it is an extremely confusing situation. Part of this is due to the ongoing uncertainty of unemployment extensions as legislation is currently pending in Congress, but part of it is that the system of tiers is complex and not well publicized or explained (at least in my experience).

The Miami Herald had a nice explanatory item recently in response to a confused reader. Here's the situation regarding the unemployment extensions:

"State/regular benefits (paid from the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund) -- for up to 26 weeks.

Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) Tier I is for up to 20 additional weeks;

Under the latest extension, customers must exhaust available state/regular benefits on or before Feb. 20, 2010 to establish Emergency Unemployment Compensation Tier I.

Customers must exhaust Tiers I, II, or III by Feb. 27, 2010 to be eligible for the next tier.

Whichever tier a customer is at on Feb. 28, 2010 will be the tier they complete and they will not be eligible for any additional tiers. The last week for which Emergency Unemployment Compensation could be paid is the week ending July 31, 2010."

As the system stands right now (assuming no further changes from pending legislation) it is set up such that only a certain subset of unemployed who fall into a "sweet spot" timeline of exhausting their third tier of benefits before Feb 27, 2010 will be eligible to receive the fourth tier, and thus the total of 79 weeks* of unemployment benefits. This is approximately two years of unemployment prior to Feb 27. What this means is that the "super" long-term unemployed (before 2008) won't receive additional help, and the medium- to long-term unemployed will not be eligible for further help either, as they won't be able to exhaust their extension tiers before the Feb 27 deadline.

There's an additional caveat for those in the short term, who haven't exhausted their state/regular benefits before Feb 20: these people will not be eligible for any of the EUC tiers.

Confusing and clearly insufficient to accommodate the vast numbers of unemployed which will likely persist throughout 2010 and into next year.

*I believe the "99 weeks" number often quoted is the maximum possible available due to individual state extensions that are not available to everyone on a federal level. So the maximum federal unemployment extension is 79 weeks.

(Note: Please check with your state unemployment office regarding your personal situation.)

How about this suggestion. Group everyone into two categories. Those that did everything right (lived within their means, paid their bills, got educated, saved for their retirement and their kids college education) and those who didn't do the right thing (please define as you you see fit). For group one people, the government gets out of the way, stops destroying everything group one people worked for and of course, these people get to be employed. The second group of people can all be required to camp out within the eyesight of those passing judgment and get to starve to death. For added pleasure, the women and children get to starve to death first.

Changes are long over due, and I hope for the sake of this country that things improve quickly. Some people who are now poor, do not deserve to be poor and have no desire to continue to struggle because of actions beyond their control.

Other than being a millionaire, hoarding your money and helping no one...there was no preparation for what is happening now.

I saw the light in 2002-3 (even wrote a book called Mistakes of Mankind), but broke the above rules.

I was warning EVERYONE in Las Vegas to sell their houses and develop an exit strategy from 2005-6. I’ve been a technical analyst in several fields.

This is a worldwide financial meltdown from “elite hoarding.”

In America, the political weenies and press propagandized “illegal aliens” stealing jobs and “outsourcing” jobs overseas, which is an exaggeration to say the least.

But from the blog responses, it worked...fooled about everyone.

What REALLY happened was a gradual (quiet) replacement of human labor over the past several decades by computers programs, automated systems and machinery.

This reduced the need for “human beings”...except one thing was forgotten or overlooked...the “required” customer base for a strong continued growth.

People need jobs to make money to buy what the evil corporations have to sell. So the snake is now eating its own tail.

What American corporations have been doing (plundering poor countries), they are now doing back home.

The American workplace has become a slave haven. Promotions and job changes are nothing more than moving from one corporate plantation to another.

Small businesses are being plowed under, one after another.

Now we have a systems collapse from a “domino effect.”

This collapse is “contrived” and CAN be “fixed” with a new social architecture, which will not happen because the wealthy citizens are delusional and paranoid to the point of self-destruction...theirs AND ours (the bottom dwellers)

Does this make any sense to you? Anyone?

I have a solution, but no contacts, finances or even a job to promote it. It’s called BTO, a 3-phase program to turn everything around. The first phase is Brakeout.

Been working on this since 2003, but have run out of gas and positive psyche, as I have fallen lower and lower on the social / financial rungs.

I honestly had no idea how bad it was on the poverty level. I had to see it, feel it and be crushed by it to understand it.

What is coming next (after the population is reduced by millions from this so-called “depression,” which it isn’t) is a fast path to extinction from all of the damage done by technical misuses, abuses and premature technological implementation.

Land fills, destroying rain forests and creating ocean dead-zones (our OXYGEN supply...du-uh), plastic rivers and lakes in the oceans and the possible methane release from the Siberian Glacier meltdown (which would end the “story of life on Earth” real fast).

Cheerful, huh?

2011 is seriously looking like a set-up year for a 2012 of nightmare proportions for everyone living on Planet Titanic.

My dreams have become one nightmare after another with more meticulously detailed conclusions than you want to know...about where we are headed.

But the hammer is coming down, guys & girls.

...and we’re the nails.

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