Thousands to Lose Extended Jobless Benefits

Thousands of North Carolina residents have been notified that their extended unemployment benefits will expire by the end of the week.

Leoneda Inge:  Notices were sent out to 17-thousand unemployed workers, informing them of the bad news.  The extended jobless benefits from the state kicked-in four years ago, during the recession.  But because of the steady drop in North Carolina’s unemployment rate, the extended benefits, or E-B trigger has stopped.  Larry Parker is a spokesman for the Commerce Department’s Division of Employment Security.

Larry Parker:  The folks that are on EB are long-term unemployed. They would have already gone through initial benefits, they would have gone through the federal extension, and now, they are going to be, they are in that last frame of benefits, if you will, and unfortunately this is it for them.

Most of the people who have reached this point have been without a job for about a year.