As the legislation currently stands, the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) programs that offered extended benefits during long-term unemployment will soon be phasing out. Here is a summary of the deadlines.
- If you are currently receiving benefits from the State of Illinois under the 26 weeks of your original benefit year, then those regular benefits must be exhausted by 12/24/11 to qualify for Tier 1 of the federal EUC program.
- If you are currently receiving EUC benefits under Tier 1, 2, or 3, then that tier’s benefits must be exhausted by 12/31/11 to qualify for the next tier of the federal EUC program.
- Extended benefits (EB) will terminate for Illinois workers as of 1/7/12. No EB payments will be available for weeks ending after this date.
All three of these programs ~ Illinois state benefits, federal EUC benefits, and EB benefits ~ are administered by the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). So be sure to check your IDES summary to see which plan you are currently receiving.
Several local applicants have indicated that they were required to qualify for a second benefit year (with the associated earned income minimums) in order to transition beyond Tier 1. Others have said that their local IDES office is requiring them to submit their job search documentation every two weeks. I haven’t been able to confirm either of these as new policies, but it seems that everything is pretty fluid for now.
For more information about the federally-funded emergency unemployment benefits, please see the IDES website starting here.
Note that our legislators are debating whether to extend these emergency unemployment benefits. The proposal being discussed at this time would allow states to reform some of the details, including the possibility that states could require benefit applicants to submit to drug screening. See this CNN article for more information. This would be a good time to communicate with our members of Congress, if you have strong convictions about whether these benefits should be extended. Find your senators and representatives for Illinois here.
