Information about the Labor Department's Extended Benefits Program and Iowa's Eligibility

Press Release

The Iowa governor did not pursue a federal program for which Iowa qualified in September 2009. As a result, potentially 18,000 Iowans missed out on extended unemployment benefits for private sector workers that were funded by the federal government at no cost to the states.

Iowa is one of six states that did not adopt an optional "EB trigger." "EB" is a permanent federal program that is normally funded 50/50 with the states. It has one mandatory trigger and two optional triggers that determine when benefits are paid. Each trigger operates independently of the other. States may qualify under one but not necessarily the other. Again, in Iowa, the state has chosen to not enact either of the optional triggers.

One trigger is based on the "total unemployment rate" (TUR) and the other is based on the "insured unemployment rate" (IUR). Based on the two rates for Iowa, it would have qualified under the TUR trigger, but not the IUR trigger.

In May 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor published guidance explaining how the states could temporarily adopt the optional TUR trigger to take advantage of the 100 percent federal funding that was available after the stimulus bill was enacted in February 2009. Subsequently, the 100-percent federal funding was been extended through November 30, 2010. Here is a link to the guidance from May 2009.

http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/UIPL/UIPL12-09_ch1acc.pdf

The data in the link below is from the U.S. Department of Labor. It says the three-month seasonally adjusted "total unemployment rate" in Iowa was 6.5 percent as of September 20.

http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/trigger/2009/trig_092009.html

Here is information about the "EB" program from the Congressional Research Service:

Extended Benefits

The EB program, established by P.L. 91-373 (26 U.S.C. 3304 note), may extend UC benefits at the state level if certain economic conditions exist within the state.

The EB program is permanently authorized, and is triggered when a state's insured unemployment rate (IUR)9 or total unemployment rate (TUR)10 reaches certain levels. All states must pay up to 13 weeks of EB if the IUR for the previous 13 weeks is at least 5% and is 120% of the average of the rates for the same 13-week period in each of the two previous years. There are two other optional thresholds that states may choose. If the state has chosen a given option, they would provide the following:

*Option 1: an additional 13 weeks of benefits if the state's IUR is at least 6%, regardless of previous years' averages.

*Option 2: an additional 13 weeks of benefits if the state's TUR is at least 6.5% and is at least 110% of the state's average TUR for the same 13-week period in either of the previous two years; an additional 20 weeks of benefits if the TUR is at least 8%.

The temporary EUC08 program should not be confused with the similarly named extended benefit (EB) program.11 The EUC08 program is temporary and tiers I and II apply to all states (tier III and IV availability depends on unemployment conditions within each state). The EB program is permanently authorized and applies only to certain states on the basis of state unemployment conditions as specified in law.

Each Monday the Department of Labor issues its "Extended Benefit Trigger Notice" at http://www.workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims_arch.asp.

If the "available weeks" column within the notice has either 13 or 20 for a particular state's row, that extended benefit program is active in that state with a potential of up to 13 or 20 weeks of EB for its unemployed workers.

Source