news-record.com

Swamped by its highest volume of jobless claims in history, the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina has a sliver of good news for 43,000 of the laid-off workers across the state:

Your money is in the bank.

Following weeks of confusion since Congress passed another emergency extension of unemployment benefits , Raleigh officials said computer programmers were working into the night Wednesday to determine which laid-off workers qualify for the latest extension.

Under a series of emergency extensions passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama, workers can draw unemployment for up to 99 weeks — the longest allowance ever. Previously, the cutoff was 26 weeks.

“We’re in an unprecedented situation,” said Andrew James, the state ESC spokesman, who said that roughly 43,000 jobless in the state qualified for this “fourth-tier” extension.

“What the client sees is that the unemployment has been extended. But for us, it’s not that simple,” James said. “We then have to go and find all those people by Social Security number who qualify. Everybody’s situation is a little different.”

James said that beginning today, some clients would see a lump sum deposited on their state debit card for benefits accrued over the past weeks.

Others will see week-by-week payments, depending on when they began filing claims.

Those unemployed in the category of “attached” workers — for example, textile and construction workers who are placed on periodic furloughs but are still subject to being called back to work — may receive paychecks rather than direct deposits, James said.

Out of 4.2 million people in the North Carolina work force, an estimated 500,000 people are out of work, and half of those draw benefits.

As of January , the number of people drawing unemployment was 237,759; a year earlier, it was almost triple that number, at 675,300.

For the already revenue-strapped state government, the toll has been high: As of March 10, Raleigh owed the federal government more than $2 billion, according to the state ESC’s most recent budget estimates. With such costs in mind, each extension, or successive “tier” of the unemployment benefit, has become an increasingly arduous debate in Washington.

On the one hand, lawmakers are mindful that laid-off workers, especially those with few prospects in hard-hit regions, must feed and shelter their families. But too many extensions, opponents argue, will result in a lack of incentive to look for work and too high a debt for the public.

An example of the wrangling over unemployment was the current extension passed March 5. It extends for only 30 days but was the subject of a showdown in the Senate, and will cost the federal government an estimated $10 billion, The Washington Post reported.

Still pending is broader legislation that would extend the fourth tier through Dec. 31, for those who still qualify. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday that the Senate sent a

$17.6 billion job creation bill to the White House intended to reverse unemployment.

“The hope is that by the end of the year, we’re going to see some dwindling in (jobless) numbers,” said James, whose office will release the latest unemployment figures Friday.

In December, Guilford’s unemployment rate was 11.2 percent. The highest rate in the state was 17.6 percent in Graham County; the lowest, 6.2 percent in Orange County. 

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com