Abstract: In US, normally the State Government sets the duration of unemployment insurance benefits and it is fixed. Sometimes, due to some drastic changes in the economy, the duration is used to be extended by the Federal Government, as it was the case for 2002. In this paper we will discuss about this matter briefly.
In US, normally the duration of unemployment the state government fixes insurance benefits, but it is subject to change. The benefits may be provided for a longer period.
In 2002, one such incident occurred in some states of US. The Federal Government, in the first phase, extended the duration of unemployment insurance benefits for 13 weeks. In some states, where the rate of unemployment was very high, for example, Washington, the duration was extended up to 26 weeks.
The employees whose insurance benefit claims had been done away with after March 2001 was entitled
for the first tier of extended insurance benefits, addressed as Temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation.
As said earlier, in Washington and Oregon the rate of unemployment was extremely high. Therefore, the government had no other choice but to start the second phase of unemployment benefit extension. In this phase, the government made a provision for additional 13 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits.
However, very few workers met with the unemployment insurance eligibility criteria, set according to the Federal Law, during the second phase. Still, it was a good approach by the Federal Government to help the jobless people to find some suitable place in the economy.