More than 7,400 residents of the Triad and Northwest North Carolina will lose their extended state unemployment benefits on April 16, according to the N.C. Employment Security Commission.
That includes 1,278 in Forsyth County, as well as about 37,000 people statewide.
The reason for ending the 20-week extended benefits program — paid with federal money — is the recent decline in the state unemployment rate. The program provided additional benefits after job-seekers exhaust their first 79 weeks of unemployment benefits.
The state's jobless rate reached its lowest level of the past two years — 9.7 percent — during February. The rate peaked at 11.4 percent in February 2010.
"We have seen the unemployment rate fall in North Carolina over the past year or so, and on one hand that's a good thing, but on the other hand, that's driven by the contraction in the labor force," said John Quinterno of Chapel Hill research firm South by North Strategies Ltd.
"You'd like to say, hey, the unemployment rate is coming down, you don't need extended unemployment benefits. ... But people are out longer and longer. These benefits become, in some ways, even more important the longer you are out of work."
Job-seekers in North Carolina are eligible for up to 26 weeks of initial unemployment benefits, plus up to 53 weeks of emergency unemployment compensation through a federal program set to expire in January.
The state has paid more than $750 million to 234,000 people through its extended-benefits program, ESC spokesman Larry Parker said. The federal government has paid those benefits in full since February 2009, he said.
"We are following federal guidelines here, and that is the reasoning" behind ending the benefits, Parker said. "We want to make sure we're really trying to inform people as best we can."
A provision in the 2009 federal stimulus act allowed federal funding for the 20 additional weeks of jobless benefits, and at least three dozen states, including North Carolina, decided to participate. Last month, Missouri officials voluntarily quit the program, citing efforts to stem government spending.
U.S. Labor Department officials did not immediately provide data on how many other states still offered the program.
About 6.1 million U.S. job-seekers were out of work for longer than six months in March, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those workers accounted for 46 percent of the total unemployed, up from 44 percent the month before.
Many of the state's long-term unemployed have depleted their savings, Quinterno said. And many job-seekers complain that the longer they're out of work, the harder it is to find a new job.
"Any time with unemployment, when you pull away that lifeline for a lot of folks, there are the negative effects on individual households that take advantage of those benefits," Quinterno said. "That is money that does come out of local communities."
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