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Rell Among 22 Governors Urging Congress To Extend Jobless Benefits

Courant Staff Report

September 19, 2009

In a letter sent this week, Gov. M. Jodi Rell was among 22 governors who petitioned leaders in Congress to again extend jobless benefits, as 400,000 unemployed workers throughout the nation lose their coverage this month.

Congress has already extended benefits during this recession, allowing for as much as 79 weeks of coverage in some states with high unemployment. The maximum in Connecticut is 72 weeks, based on the unemployment rate.

The letter from the governors, dated Sept. 15, does not propose a specific plan but also seeks an expansion of federal subsidies for individual health insurance under the COBRA law; those subsidies are scheduled to end Dec. 31.

As of Thursday, when the Connecticut Department of Labor reported an 8.1 percent unemployment rate for August, the state had barely missed a cutoff under which it would have received as much as $37 million in additional federal money for seven weeks of extended benefits for as many as 17,000 people losing benefits. The letter from the governors is not directly related to that cutoff.