Re-filing for benefits from being laid off but told my funds have run out

by Don
(Pittsburgh PA)

I live in PA. I am on a laid off status. I was told that my benefits run out the first week of december. Do I refile? Am I S.O.L.? Finding a job in the 4th Qtr is almost a no go. So do I truly get no more benefits even though I was laid off?





Hi Don,

Oh yes, let's not talk extensions.

I would think it depends on whether there is any extension to be had at that time you need one. Unless your benefit year will expire at that time to.

If that is the case and extensions were a non-factor .. you would have to have met PA's qualifying wages to establish a second benefit year .. and your weekly benefit would most likely be lower .. seems to be happening to everyone .. even though that is how unemployment benefits used to work .. it's the extensions that have everyone's idea of how unemployment works .. all screwed up.

The current extension expires November 30th. The normal process is that any benefits year entitles you (generally) to 26 weeks of total unemployment benefits. Extension do just that .. they extend benefits when regular benefits run out until the end of a claim which is one year long. The total and full weekly benefits only last six months if you use them all up in the first six months of the claim. Used to be you were screwed until either you found another job or your benefit year ended and you had enough earnings for a second benefit year in your new base period.

I believe, in your case, this means that if they don't pass another extension that runs consecutively to this last one or doesn't reach back to those lost in between this one that ends Nov 30th 2010 and any date beyond Dec. 1 and when they finally pass another .. if they do, you are S.O.L.


Quite frankly .. they stopped being able to manage to pass bills on time last November when they passed an extension with a major glitch because they waited so long to pass it.

My level of trust that politicians will do the right thing is just about equal with the height of the soles of my shoes.

I usually leave the asking of questions about the current round of extensions to unemployedworkers.org

Ask their expert, sign their petition, because they are the unemployed's main advocacy group .. or should I call them lobbyists .. I'm not sure.

I now try to avoid questions about extensions because first .. it's not my specialty, I sound dumb when I write about it, and any discussion of extensions tends to get me all "riled up" and makes we want to start talking "politics" from my neutral bi-partisan position .. All politicians are self-serving moronic idiots who wouldn't know a workable solution if it jumped up and bit them.

Hell, I think the politicians in my state alone could have funded extended benefits for my state's unemployed residents when they tallied up the cost of the TV ads and the 999 recorded messages I received per day telling me who I should vote for.

See .. I can't stop myself.

Chris