Michigan MARVIN Extended Benefits Expire April 2, Fix It

As many of you know the Extended Benefits or EB will be expiring April 2nd for Michigan residents.

Who is affected?

The termination of this program will likely impact 35,000 workers immediately, by the end of the year 150,000 workers could be affected by no action to the extended benefit program.

What happened?

The “Total Unemployment Rate” will be below the threshold for EB funds April 2, 2011.  To qualify for EB, a State must have 6.5% unemployment rate and that rate must also be 110% of the unemployment rate 3 years prior.

The issue is that the current law only allows Michigan to look back at unemployment rates 2 years prior, not 3 years.

So in Michigan the maximum amount of weeks unemployed workers will qualify for will be 79 weeks.  The term 99er is generally given to people who have gone beyond 99 weeks of unemployment and are still without a job.

In Michigan we will be looking at a new lower class of unemployed workers without benefits 79ers.

Can this be fixed?

Yes, The Federal Government passed a law that States can go back 3 years and if current unemployment is 110% of those levels it will qualify for EB funds.

Rick Snyder is reported to be a supporter of extending this for long term unemployed workers.  This is achievable.

Yes the Federal Government approved rules to allow for state governments to approve Federal EB funds looking back at unemployment rates for 3 years.

What can you do?

Spread the word, to anyone that will listen, but most importantly your state legislators.

NELP has a form that will help you fill out to send to your representative.  It didn’t work for me but give it a try.

You can find your Michigan representative here http://house.michigan.gov/find_a_rep.asp

Spread the word, tweet or follow us @Careerpurgatory.  Look for jobs on our site here or check out our job list on Twitter. We also have a dynamic list of unemployment and jobs you can follow.