MacIver News Service | June 111, 2012
[Madison, Wisc…] The Department of Workforce Development today alerted lawmakers that some extended unemployment benefits would no longer be available now that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is below 7%.From a memo sent by DWD this afternoon:
The state of Wisconsin has received official notification from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that the continued improvement in our state’s unemployment rate triggered a reduction in the total amount of federal emergency unemployment benefits that are available in Wisconsin.
According to regulations set forth by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Wisconsin’s three-month unemployment rate has dropped below 7 percent to 6.8 percent. This improvement in our state’s unemployment rate means the state of Wisconsin no longer meets the federally required threshold for the 13-week federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) Tier 3 program. As a result, approximately 11,500 Wisconsin UI claimants who exhaust benefits in the federal EUC Tier 2 program after June 23, 2012 will not be able to move into Tier 3, per the federal government.
With these federally mandated changes in effect, the maximum number of weeks a claimant will be eligible to collect UI benefits in Wisconsin will be 60 weeks instead of 73 weeks.
The agency began sending the attached information to all UI claimants over this past weekend. The receipt of this information may generate constituent contacts to your offices. For your reference, the DWD web page provides information about the federal extensions. It may be helpful to direct callers to this link: http://dwd.wi.gov/uiben/extended_benefits.htm#euc.