Situation
Late on March 2, 2010, Congress passed and President Obama quickly signed a one-month extension to expiring unemployment insurance (UI) benefits provisions.
What Employers Need to Know
The legislation does not create any additional or new UI benefits. It simply pushes back the expiration date of current benefit provisions, from February 28, 2010 to April 5, 2010. These UI assistance measures are:
• Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) – These are 100% federally funded benefits available to persons who exhaust their regular UI benefits.
• State Extended Benefits (EB) Full Federal Funding – The federal government will pick up 100% of the cost of state extended benefits. By law, the feds cannot cover the cost of state EB for government entities and Indian tribes, so these employers are liable for any EB paid to their unemployed workers.
• Federal Additional Compensation (FAC) – This is a 100% federally funded supplement of $25 added to all weekly UI benefits paid, be they regular, EUC or EB.
Next Steps
Despite this temporary extension, thousands of individuals are beginning to exhaust the maximum 99 weeks of combined state and federal UI benefits. Therefore, it is expected Congress will work on additional extensions through the end of 2010.
Special Note: The temporary, one-month extension also applies to the COBRA subsidy originally enacted under the 2009 Recovery Act.
Tammy Mullin