With Benefits Cut, Unemployed Take Stock Of Dwindling Options
In November, 222,000 Californians opened their mailboxes to find a warning: Unemployment benefits were scheduled to end in December.
While Congress was inching closer to passing a budget, Emergency Unemployment Compensation was not part of the deal. That's the long-term jobless benefits: extra federal money that allows unemployed workers to collect payments for months longer than they could in better economic times.
Sure enough, on Dec. 18, Congress passed that budget and packed up for Christmas recess, leaving those extended benefits to expire just 10 days later.
So what happens to people and families whose payments were cut off?
Returning Presents
"I followed it every week, and I was just like, did they really just go home?" says Ruth Mills, one of those Californians affected.
Mills, 28, lost her job as a construction estimator back in June.
"I was already on unemployment so I didn't have a lot of money. But a couple things my wife asked for for Christmas were very small, and a couple of things ... she asked me to get for my son, I got them," Mills says. "And I ended up taking everything back, just to get our cash back, so I could pay whatever bills we had."
Even with her partner's salary, losing benefits means Mills and her family are moving in with her parents. To improve her chances of getting a job, Mills planned to get a welding certificate at a nearby trade school. Class starts on Jan. 27, but the $600 payment is due by Jan. 10. Without unemployment checks she doesn't know how she'll pay.
Extra training is one of the things the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program is intended to help with. The money goes to the newly unemployed to help keep them on their feet and in their homes. And usually, there's a little extra to fund the job hunt — things like gas and paying the cellphone bill for interviews.
This For That
States have their own unemployment benefits, but when the recession hit in 2008, Congress passed an emergency extension, paid for by the federal government. NPR's Chris Arnold says that extension has been renewed several times, but that came to an end on Dec. 28, cutting off about 1.3 million Americans.
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