The state’s extended benefits program for the long-term unemployed is about to end. About 37-thousand people will lose their benefits.
Extended benefits from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission started in October 2008 – in the heat of the economic downturn. Larry Parker is a spokesman for the E-S-C. He says since then – 234-thousand people have received 750-million dollars in extended benefits from the state.
Larry Parker: "You know, we’ve paid out quite a bit in this program and that money goes towards folks to pay house payments, car payments, bills, you know it puts groceries on the table, puts money back into local economies."
Parker says the program is ending April 16th because it no longer meets federal requirements, due to the fact that North Carolina’s unemployment rate has steadily gone down