Out of work, out of benefits, out of luck
By August, 65% of all filers for unemployment insurance will have run out of their standard 26 weeks. And that's just the beginning.Last Updated: July 17, 2009: 9:53 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The next bubble in the recession is about to burst.
More than 650,000 Americans will have used up all of their unemployment benefits by September, in what experts say could be the start of a looming crisis.
In the early days of the downturn, the government extended unemployment benefits beyond the standard 26 weeks to as many as 79 weeks in hopes of giving the jobless a longer lifeline. Officials predicted the economy worsening and businesses further contracting, resulting in fewer jobs for the newly unemployed to find.
With the recession now 18 months deep and the national unemployment rate standing at 9.5%, it appears that the effort wasn't robust enough for those in the crisis' first wave of layoffs.
"We need to get the issue attention now, because people are running out of benefits and there's just nothing for them," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group that has calculated the number of people who will exhaust their unemployment benefits.
In fact, Stettner and the Labor Department are expecting the problem to accelerate. In the next few weeks, the victims of the mass layoffs that happened six months ago -- when the pace of layoffs was at its zenith -- will start running out of their basic benefits. A total of 4.4 million people are expected to face this fate -- or 65% of the entire filing population. \
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http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/17/news/economy/unemployment_benefits/?postversion=2009071707