Benefit checks running out for many
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Steve Chiotakis: We’re set today to get from the Labor Department the unemployment report for August. Analysts expect the report to show the loss of 225,000 jobs and an unemployment rate that’s risen to 9.5 percent. While people in this country continue to lose their jobs, there are others who lost their jobs months ago and who stand to lose something else. Marketplace’s Caitlan Carroll reports.
Caitlan Carroll: By the end of this month, 400,000 people who have already lost their jobs could lose their unemployment benefits, too. That’s according to a report from the National Employment Law Project.
Christine Riordan is an analyst with the project:
Christine Riordan: It’s just really tough to find a job. There are nationally about six unemployed workers for every one job opening.
Alan Auerbach is a professor of law and economics at UC Berkeley. He says the economy has made some modest gains, but it will take awhile for workers to catch up.
Alan Auerbach: The unemployment rate tends to lag the cycle, and so even if the economy is slowly starting to improve, that doesn’t mean the unemployment rate is suddenly gonna turn around.
Unemployment benefits can last from 26 weeks to more than a year. And Congress is looking at extending them further in some of the hardest-hit states.
In Los Angeles, I’m Caitlan Carroll for Marketplace.
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