Extended Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefits
President Bush signed a spending bill June 30 that includes a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits
Sacramento - The state Employment Development Department (EDD) is moving quickly to ensure that workers who are struggling to find jobs in the slowing economy promptly receive the extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits authorized by Congress and President Bush.
"We are sensitive to the human toll of the economic slowdown on unemployed workers and their families," said Patrick Henning, Director of the Employment Development Department. "EDD will work with unemployed persons to immediately extend this new lifeline to those who have exhausted their entitlement to regular unemployment benefits."
EDD staff has been checking records of UI claims and will contact all 1.6 million claimants potentially eligible for the new federal extension. These extensions can be filed on or after July 6, 2008.
Workers potentially eligible for extended benefits:
* Are fully or partially unemployed on or after July 6, 2008,
* Have exhausted their entitlement to a regular UI claim,
* Are not qualified to file a new regular claim,
* Have had a valid claim that began on or after May 7, 2006, and
* Meet all eligibility criteria.
Due to eligibility requirements in the federal law, some workers will not be eligible for extended benefits if they have not earned enough wages in their base periods. The workers' base period is a 12-month period of earnings used to establish a UI claim and calculate their benefit awards.
Click here for more information at EDD's Web site.
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