The Alabama Department of Labor announced today that the Extended Benefits program will expire on Aug. 29, 2020. ADOL will continue to pay these benefits through Sept. 19, 2020.
This is a separate program from the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program that was enacted under the CARES Act. PEUC provides for an additional 13 weeks of regular unemployment following exhaustion.
The EB program is a federal program that is triggered when a state’s insured unemployment rate exceeds 5.9 percent. Alabama’s weekly insured unemployment rate of 6.11 percent triggered the state onto a 13-week EB period beginning the week of May 31. The rate is computed by dividing the Insured Unemployed for the current quarter by Covered Employment for the first four of the last six completed quarters. This is not the same as the monthly unemployment rate.
EB is usually available during times of adverse economic conditions. The last time Alabama offered the EB programs was during the Great Recession of 2008. Alabama will trigger off of the program on Aug. 29, 2020, when the weekly insured unemployment rate will drop to 4.86 percent.
While the EB program was available for up to 13 weeks, not all claimants were eligible to receive all weeks.
