Weekly checks
New York state pays the least amount of unemployment benefits per week:
▶ Connecticut: $594/week
▶ New Jersey: $584/week
▶ Pennsylvania: $566/week
▶ New York: $405/week
Published 21:55, September the 28th, 2009
Jobs lag in recovery
Congress mulling 13-week extension of unemployment benefits
Barbara Carney scours job sites “five hours a day, six days a week.” The 45-year-old Newark resident sends dozens of résumés every day. She wakes up in the night and checks her e-mail to see if anyone replied. They rarely do.
She is one of the jobless Americans waiting for Congress to pass a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits. Yet both the unemployed and experts say the extension is only a Band-Aid.
Even amid signs of recovery, economists predict that New York and New Jersey will lag behind the rest of the country.
“It’s not enough unless in 13 weeks there will be an abundance of jobs available,” said Carney, who was laid off from her administrative assistant job at Prudential Bank in 2008.“People want to work — the great majority of these people are frantically searching for employment.”
Carney, who made $45,000 a year at her old job, already exhausted her benefits on July 30.
“The fact that the economy is doing better won’t affect the job market. So Congress is going to have to come back and do something else.”
Bill would aid states hit most
In its current form, the bill to extend benefits by 13 weeks would only apply to residents of the 27 states where the unemployment rate is above 8.5 percent – that includes New York (10.3 percent) and New Jersey (9.7 percent). The bill is expected to pass “will phase out in January regardless,” said Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Labor Project.
METRO