States Decide When to Accept Extended Benefit Funds from Federal Government

• Federal law gives individual states the choice to accept federal funds for extended unemployment benefits when the unemployment rate is above 6 percent or to choose to not to accept the funds, as the regular federal program supplies 50 percent of the costs of the extended benefits and state governments must cover the remainder.
  
  

Eligibility for Extended Unemployment Benefits Varies by State

• Each state sets its own eligibility requirements and maximum weekly and total unemployment benefit payouts. Most states do not have any additional eligibility requirements for extended unemployment benefits except for exhausting your regular unemployment benefits.
  
  

Basic Unemployment Benefit Eligibility Requirements

• The basic eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits are involuntary termination, as long as it was not due to gross negligence or criminal behavior, being physically able and available to work and actively seeking employment. Many states require that you prove you are actively seeking work by regularly submitting the employment contacts you made during each benefit period, and some states are beginning to impose other requirements, such as mandatory retraining for long-term unemployment benefits recipients.
  
  

Up to 99 Weeks of Total Unemployment Benefits

• Regular state unemployment programs offer up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. And between 2008 and 2010, the U.S. Congress authorized three additional extended unemployment benefits programs aside from the original program, resulting in some of the long-term unemployed receiving four tiers of extended benefits for up to a total of 99 weeks of benefits.