Extended Unemployment Benefits

Pennsylvania Offers More Help to the Unemployed

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also called 2009  Stimulus has made some changes to the Unemployment compensation in many states. Pennsylvania has added its own stimulus to the unemployment forum.
EB, or extended benefits are unemployment compensation that adds several weeks to those displaced workers who are qualified by meeting certain criteria. Among the conditions that need to be met are an employment rate over a certain percentage.

Pennsylvania’s employment rate, now over 7% does meet those criteria,  among the criteria– a statewide unemployment rate being over a certain percentage, not merely several counties.

Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry has therefore declared an extended benefit period which entered into play  February 21, 2009.

The Extended beneft period adds up to thirteen (13) weeks of extra unemployment compensation on top of what you already qualify for after your initial unemployment benefits have been used up on the regular or emergency unemployment compensation insurance.

You will only receive these benefits so long as Pennsylvania stays in the higher unemployment rate state wide and when unemployment rates decrease statewide on the whole, as more and more people become employed again, the extended benefits will end at that point.

According to the experts an EB or extended benefit period must last at least 13 weeks once it has been declared and the level unemployment must reach before extended benefits are available to Pennsylvania workers may change each year.

A new EB Period will not start prior to the fourteenth week following the last week of a prior EB Period.

To be eligible for the EB, you must be:

• Totally or partially unemployed
• Have exhausted all regular unemployment compensation benefits
• Have exhausted  Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits
• Able to satisfy all Pennsylvania requirements for Unemployment Compensation Law
• Actively seeking work
• Available for work if called

To file for Extended Unemployment compensation benefits in the state of Pennsylvania, a notice will be mailed to you saying that you are eligible.  You may  then go to the Pennsylvania Unemployment office web site, located at:

http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/cwp/view.asp?a=357&q=236939

There you can find out your rights and responsibilities and what to do if you are not mailed a determination stating that you can take the extended benefits  under Pennsylvania law.