National Map of Unemployment Benefits

During the Great Recession the job market was extremely bad, and even though the Great Recession has been over since December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research the job market has been struggling.  As a result of this Congress took action and started Federal Emergency Unemployment benefits which in many states maxed out at 99 weeks.

Unemployment benefits maximum weeks for 2012:

Map of United States unemployment in weeks

The Wall Street Journal has a quick slideshow of the map of the United States showing from 2008 to 2012 how long unemployment benefits in weeks were being paid out at a maximum.  For most of 2008 the country only had a few states that paid 59 weeks by November 2009 much of the country was eligible for 99 weeks of unemployment benefits.

In 2012 this reversed again as the economy did start to recover ever so slightly. Also states like Michigan took to cutting unemployment benefit weeks paid at the state level to help balance their budgets.

Wall Street Journal