off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
North Carolina, with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates at 8.8 percent, imposed cuts in unemployment benefits today that are truly breathtaking:
- Jobless workers can now receive only 19 weeks of benefits — less than half what any other state offers, even states like North Dakota where the economy is much stronger (see map). The previous limit, similar to other states with relatively high unemployment, was 63 weeks: 26 weeks of state-funded benefits plus another 37 weeks of federally funded emergency benefits for which North Carolina has now disqualified itself, as explained below.Image
- Some 70,000 unemployed workers will lose emergency federal benefits right away. Another 100,000 or so will lose benefits that they would have received over the next several months.
- Cuts in who can qualify for benefits, how much they receive, and for how long will slash total payments of state-funded benefits by nearly three-quarters by 2021, compared to the previous rules.
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