Pennsylvania Extended Unemployment Benefits

With the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as Stimulus 2009, we have seen a few changes to extended unemployment compensation. Pennsylvania has announced its own stimulus in the area of unemployment.

Extended Benefits, or EB, are additional unemployment compensation weeks that qualified workers who meet certain criteria will be eligible to receive. The conditions to be met include the state's overall unemployment rate, which has now gone over 7%.

The conditions have to exist statewide for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry to declare an Extended Benefit period. This period was triggered in the state on February 21, 2009.

The program offers up to thirteen additional weeks of extended unemployment compensation benefits to those who are qualified and have exhausted all rights and balances on regular or Emergency Unemployment Compensation.

The benefits are only payable as long as the state remains in a high unemployment rate. When the unemployment rate decreases as more individuals find work, the Extended Benefit Period will end.

An EB Period under Pennsylvania State Unemployment Law beings when the unemployment rate holds at a very high rate for a continuous period of three weeks. (The level it must reach may change each year.)

The EB Period will end when the unemployment rate declines below to decided percentage for three straight weeks. An EB period must last at least thirteen consecutive weeks once declared.

A new EB Period cannot begin before the fourteenth week following the last week of a prior EB Period.

Eligibility requirements include being totally or partially unemployed, exhausting all regular unemployment compensation benefits, exhausting all Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits, satisfying all requirements of Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law that apply to regular UC claims, and your base year wages of your most recent UC claim must equal or exceed 1 ½ times the amount of wages in the calendar quarter of your base year when you had the most wages.

Additionally, you must actively seek employment every week that you claim EB, you cannot refuse an offer for suitable work, or fail to apply for suitable work that PA CareerLink referred you to.

You will be required to prove your efforts to find suitable work as well. Under the state law, you must make an effort to obtain work by conducting at least two job search activities each week, on separate days, that you claim the benefits.

The Department of Labor and Industry suggest that you keep detailed records of your job search activities including method of search, date, results, and kind of work you sought.

Suitable work under the department's definition is work that is within your capabilities, the work pays a minimum of the highest state or federal minimum wage, the work pays more than your EB benefit amount plus the amount of any Supplemental Unemployment Benefits you may receive, and the work is listed with PA CareerLink or offered to you by the employer in writing.

The EB benefit amount is the same as your benefit amount from your most recent regular unemployment compensation claim. The total amount of EB you may receive is 50% of the amount of your regular UC claim.

If you are eligible to receive EB you will be notified by the Department of Labor and Industry by mail via a financial determination notice. EB is not going to be filed on the Internet, or over the phone. You will be required to fill out a paper form each week that you wish to claim EB.

EB is payable by either the unemployment debit card or direct deposit. The method of payment that was used for the most recent UC or EUC claim will carry on to your EB claim.

sources:

http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/cwp/view.asp?a=357&q=236939
http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/cwp/view.asp?a=358&q=251779
http://www.dli.state.pa.us/landi/cwp/view.asp?a=358&q=251786