South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Absent congressional action, the emergency unemployment insurance benefits authorized under the recovery act. The National Employment Law Project reports that an expiration would result in 5 million unemployed workers losing their unemployment insurance benefits by June 2010. This includes 1.7 million workers who will not be able to access any emergency benefits and 3.3 million individuals who will be eligible for fewer weeks of emergency benefits than currently is the case.

In North Carolina, an expiration of the emergency benefit program will cause an estimated 3,216 workers to lose benefits in March and 13,515 individuals to lose insurance assistance by June of this year.