Many of Idaho's unemployed workers will see no disruption in their federal emergency unemployment insurance benefits after Congress and President Obama extended the program for two months into 2010.
The $25 supplemental benefit passed last fall has also been extended, as has a measure to extend a federal subsidy for continued health-insurance coverage for laid-off workers under employer group plans.
Federally-funded unemployment benefits were scheduled to start ending for many on Dec. 31, 2009, but that deadline has been extended to the week of Feb. 27, 2010.
Workers laid off prior to Feb. 27 and who have exhausted benefits may be eligible for up to 73 additional weeks of extended benefits in addition to the basic 26 weeks Idaho currently provides. Claims exhausted after the week ending Feb. 27 will not be eligible for federal extended benefits. New claims filed after the week ending Feb. 27 will also not be eligible for the $25 supplemental payment.
Unemployment insurance is a federal/state program. Each state administers the program at its discretion within specific federal parameters, with tax rates and benefit amounts set by state law. Contributions by Idaho businesses fund the first 26 weeks of unemployment insurance.
Eligibility for federally-funded extended benefits will be determined automatically and claimants do not need to contact the Idaho Department of Labor to apply for the extension. Should they try, they may have trouble getting through. The agency is already experiencing a huge increase in the volume of calls it's receiving - in some cases as many as 25,000 in a single morning. During December the agency received more than 833,000 calls - the highest volume of calls received during any month in 2009 and 40,000 more than it received during January of last year.
In 2009, the state paid $643 million in regular, extended and supplemental unemployment insurance benefits to people who are out of work, an all-time annual record for any year in the state's history and far exceeding the $247 million paid in 2008. Broken down, nearly $403 million of the 2009 total was paid in regular benefits - those held at the state level by the Idaho Trust Fund - with the remaining $240 million paid in federal extended and supplemental benefits.
The renewed COBRA subsidy, which pays 65 percent of health insurance to eligible jobless people, was extended through June for a total of 15 months, up from the current nine. The subsidy applies only to workers let go by employers.
Under COBRA, the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, severed workers can stay on their employer's group health plan for up to 18 months or longer in some circumstances provided they pay the full premium plus an administrative fee. With the subsidy, terminated workers pay 35 percent of the premium.
Eligibility for the subsidy was scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2009, but has been extended to workers laid off between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28, 2010, in addition to those let go between Sept. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2009, under the original program.
The COBRA subsidy is provided in the form of a payroll tax credit to employers with 20 or more workers. The bill requires employers to notify current and future COBRA participants of the extended 15-month eligibility. For questions about COBRA, call the U.S. Department of Labor at (866) 444-3272 or visit dol.gov/cobra.