More than 1 million jobless Californians could have their unemployment benefits cut off soon if Congress does not continue federally financed extensions of up to 99 weeks, state officials said Wednesday.
At least 100,000 of those workers, those who have been unemployed the longest, could see a cutoff of benefits as early as the first week of January.
The state has more than 2 million unemployed workers, and 1.1 million of them are now collecting benefits – either the 26 weeks of state-financed payments, or the up to 73 weeks of federally financed extended benefits.
Benefits range from $40 to $450 a week, and California is paying out about $1.2 billion in state and federal unemployment insurance benefits a month.
The federal extensions are now tied up in a partisan political wrangle involving a Republican-controlled House, a Democratic-controlled Senate and the Obama White House.
Without action, they will expire at the end of the year.
Dan Stephens, a spokesman for the Employment Development Department, said that, if the political deadlock continues, those receiving the initial 26 weeks of benefits would continue to receive payments until the time expired, but they could not apply for extensions. Those receiving the first four tiers of federal extensions would receive benefits until their tier periods expired, but they would not be able to move up to another tier.
Those on the last, 20-week tier – about 100,000 jobless workers – would have their benefits cut off almost immediately, Stephens said, without congressional action. They would join the 584,637 unemployed Californians who already have exhausted all tiers of benefits.
© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195.
• Read more articles by Dan Walters
What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com
Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)
Here are some rules of the road:
• Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "Report Abuse" link to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
• Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand.
• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
• Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
• Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.
• Don't flag other users' comments just because you don't agree with their point of view. Please only flag comments that violate these guidelines.
You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "Report Abuse" link to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.
If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "Report Abuse" link below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.