Despite Congress signing a law extending unemployment benefits throughout the country, the extra help probably will not arrive in time for the holidays for people out of work in North Carolina.
Many people who have already seen their unemployment benefits expire may have thought they were getting an early Christmas present when Congress decided to extend the benefits. However, the North Carolina Employment Security Commission said it could be up to six weeks before anyone receives the payments.
A spokesperson for the North Carolina ESC said they still need time to figure out who is eligible for the additional benefits. The ESC plans to send out letters to people who need to reapply for the extension with in the next two weeks.
Some people, currently receiving unemployment benefits, will not have to apply for the extension.
“People buy things with these, make house payments and stuff like that. Certainly around the holiday times it means even more because certainly families want to take care of each other when it comes to normal holiday things,” said ESC spokesperson Larry Parker.
The ESC said people should continue filing their weekly certification with the local unemployment office. Those who receive the unemployment benefits will receive one lump sum payment retroactive to the week ending November 14th if they are eligible.
The unemployment benefit extension falls under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which is set to expire at the end of the year.
In order for someone to move into another tier of unemployment benefits Congress will have to extend the program. They are expected to do that by the end of December to keep the benefits running smoothly.
Unemployment Extensions
Actually, the US Senate has no plans to change the December 31 expiration of EUC under the ARRA; only the House does. So the extension likely will not happen before benefits are exhausted. It is unfathomable that our leaders would waste so much time on healthcare reform at this time, with barely a passing glance to the 1 million who will lose any means of sustenance on January 1. None of our leaders has even considered the stress this is putting on state unemployment divisions nationwide, who have to continually update and reprogram systems on a dime to accommodate extensions. Hopefully, our leaders understand the macroeconomic and humanitarian issues and will extend benefits before our economy has to handle the burden of a million families with no ability to provide to their families or contribute to the economy.
"Our leaders" understand nothing
Why are they so focused on taking over healthcare while they have done nothing (for years) to fix Social Security and Medicare? Why are they lying about not sacrificing Medicare for the sake of Obamacare? Why are they failing to address the worst raw debt in history, or a debt to GDP ratio slope that is steeper in the past year than in the 1941-1945 timeframe?
Wait another twenty years and see where we are because of "our leaders." We are so over-extended and over-obligated on entitlements and benefits that we are racing toward default on our debt or draconian tax-rates that will exceed pre-Reagan levels.
Of the 537 elected political hacks we sent to the federal government, you'd be hard pressed to find a dozen statesmen among them. They don't care about you, they don't care about your problems, and they obviously don't care about the future of this nation. They only want to increase their own power to dominate your life and insure their continued employment in a rather cushy, non-demanding job.
I long for the day when the terrible giant awakens, and the one-half of the country that pays these bums' salaries hand them the fate they truly deserve.
If
you go to his website or access YouTube, listen to Richard Burr on 11/12 and 11/15.
He puts forth some pretty scary numbers and removes some of the smoke and mirrors the Administration was using in an attempt to force feed the health care agenda through.
For instance, remove $450 Billion from Medicare.
For instance, fund a program for 20 years before anyone can file for benefits -- pretty easy to show a surplus for 20 years.
Fund a program for 10 years; but only allow benefits in the final 6. Again, pretty easy to project a surplus.
I'm not a Democrat. Harry Truman was. We share one common belief -- you can not spend what you do not have. In fact, his early political career began during the Depression when he brought fiscal responsibility to his local County government and led the path from a blinding deficit to a robust surplus of funds.
He came to the attention of Roosevelt, when he led a Senate sub-committe which fought waste in wartime spending.
They could not run Medicare or Social Security. They bankrupt Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Now health care.
Terrorists and third world countries could not break this country militarily. So they send a sleeper agent into our midst and foolishly, the giddy headed liberals annoint him.
If you truly believe Obama
If you truly believe Obama is a sleeper agent for terrorists and thrid-world countries, you really should make an appointment with medical professional for your paranoid schizophrenia.
Those conspiracy theories sound like something skinheads or other fringe groups would say about African Americans or Jewish people. People who believe these theories have lost touch with reality. Hence the need for a medical professional.
Mike, Mike, Mike
why is it that when confronted with anything negative about the Annointed One, folks like you have nothing to offer but personal attacks against the one who raises a question? Afraid to face the facts?
It's a fact he authorized the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to avoid the scrutiny of his birth certificate. Why did he resort to such an action rather than just hold up his birth certificate and prove all those people were in error?
Why did he authorize the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to force his college applications be sealed and not subject to public review? Was he afraid it might come out his Mother had renounced his citizenship when she married an Indonesian so he could attend Indonesian public schools?
That's no conspiracy theory. That's public record.
But, no doubt you will continue to stick your head in the sand and believe the impossible dreams?
His administration has created more debt for future generations to deal with than the past 5 Administrations. And he did it in 9 months. That's another fact.
So Mike respond with fact and not personal attack. Or, just prove that you have nothing to offer of substance in his defense.
Yeah, Tom...
I have to agree with them, that he's not a planted "Manchurian Candidate." Legal, natural citizen or not, I think he's mostly a good ol' home-grown Marxist.
My belief is that like the majority of Democrats, he simply believes that Communism CAN work if we just give it a bit more that the SEVENTY-FIVE years the U.S.S.R. tried.
Sure - they collapsed.....China abandoned it and is now Capitalist in everything but name.....the two countries that held onto it, Cuba and North Korea, are economic wastelands....and even the Socialist countries of Europe are having to cut back on benefits and taxes before they completely collapse, BUT WE CAN MAKE IT WORK!
Obama and the people who elected him have simply dedicated their lives to destroying the American way of life and recreating the country in the image of their long dreamed of Socialist Utopia.
So when I think of "...all enemies, foreign and domestic..." I place them in the latter category.
Facts?
Your math is a little fuzzy.Even what you say is true how does that make him a plant? Wheres your "FACTS" for that? And why do you have to use personal attacks against your President? To think Obama is a terrorist plant is about as crazy as to think Bush planned 9/11.
The main question is, where
The main question is, where did you come up with him being planted by terrorists? Do you know how improbable it is to think someone picked a boy, falsified his birth records and school records, and planted him as a U.S. citizen on the off chance that someday he might be elected president? The odds are astronomical, where no "reasonable" person would think this is an actual possibility.
Like Mike said, I'd suggest you have a mental health screening. Or maybe start wearing your tinfoil hat.
Wasted votes on NC Reps and NC dragging their feet!
Where are all of these jobs that were going to be created? I work all of these years, pay my taxes, SS, and can't get a little help to get by until I get another job. Meanwhile, all of the jobs in NC are going away...
Oh, and kids no Christmas or heat this year!
6 weeks?
The contents of the bill have been available for almost a month now. Indiana is accepting claims as of Monday and depositing to accounts by Wednesday of this coming week. What could Indiana possibly know that NC doesn't?
This will hurt North Carolina businesses at the worst time of the year. There is NO excuse for this.
This is ridiculous, other
This is ridiculous, other states have already sent out the letters to eligible claimants, TWO weeks after the law passes.
What is taking NC a month to do so?
What is North Carolina's problem, why would it take six weeks to get these benefits?
North Carolina is the slowest on progress and the HIGHEST in taxes and fees!
I absolutely agree with you.
I absolutely agree with you. I can't believe in this day and time it would take them 6 weeks to figure out who's eligible and process payments. It didn't take them any time to tell me that my benefits had exhausted. I'm not a rocket scientist but I do know there is already a database of all recipients who's benefits have exhausted and the terms of their unemployment. These are the type of things we all need to remember come election time.