HONOLULU – Pearl Imada Iboshi, director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, said today that unless Congress takes action this week as it reconvenes, the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program may end on November 30, 2010. The EUC provides up to 47 additional weeks of benefits for unemployment insurance (UI) claimants on top of the 26 weeks of regular state
unemployment insurance payments.
If Congress does not extend the EUC program, individuals who exhaust their regular UI benefits after November 20, 2010, will not qualify to receive EUC benefits. Each week, approximately 400 individuals exhaust regular UI benefits.
Individuals who are already collecting EUC may continue to collect the benefits on their respective Tier through April 30, 2011, but no new EUC tiers may be added after November 30, 2010. There are about 500 individuals per week who progress from Tier I (20 weeks) to Tier II (14 weeks), or from Tier II to Tier III (13 weeks).
Since it started in July 2008 and through subsequent extensions enacted by Congress, the EUC program has assisted more than 48,000 individuals in Hawai‘i. Currently, there are 10,000 individuals filing weekly claims for EUC benefits. Approximately 8,800 individuals have exhausted all benefits since the inception of the program.
“With over $416 million in EUC benefits issued in Hawai‘i since 2008, the federal extended unemployment compensation supplemented incomes of our jobless population and reduced the impact of the rising unemployment due to the national recession,” said
Iboshi.
In addition, the Federal Additional Compensation program which provides an extra $25 weekly stimulus payment ends on December 11, 2010.
Submitted by Pearl Imada Iboshi with the Dept. of Labor & Industrial Relations
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