763K in California Lose Long-Term Unemployed Benefits

Next Saturday California's chronically unemployed will be cut off from the nation's jobless benefits. A drop in the state's unemployment rate to 11 percent – its lowest mark in three years – is triggering the federal cutoff of emergency, long-term unemployment pay to at least 93,000 Californians.

But in the state's agricultural heartland, where Callahan-Johnson runs the Merced County Community Action Agency, a jobless rate of more than 20 percent – two and a half times the nationwide average of 8.2 percent – makes it difficult for some to believe an economic recovery has begun.

With just two weeks' notice, those 93,000 people will join 670,000 other unemployed Californians whose benefits, averaging $292 a week, already have run out. "This is a hard cut-off. It's not like you get to finish out your 20 weeks," said Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. "This is a very dramatic impact with this latest wave of workers ... who once were gainfully employed who have run out of everything." More...