The Jobless Go Begging in Washington State

04-08-2012 • http://www.truthdig.com

Thousands of jobless workers in Washington state will lose their unemployment checks starting later this month when the federal government begins withdrawing emergency benefits because overall state unemployment has dropped below 8.5 percent.

The problem is that the system ignores individual workers’ needs among the roughly 175,000 people collecting unemployment checks.

That the unemployment rate is falling is good. The bad news is that because the rate has fallen below 8.5 percent, emergency unemployment compensation – cash supplied by the federal government – is going away.

That means 12,000 unemployed workers will lose their extended benefits on April 21. Another 11,000 will lose them by late June, and another 40,000 people could run out of benefits during the final six months of the year.