End of unemployment checks will mean no income for many

End of unemployment checks will mean no income for many
Jobless insurance varies

By Tony Pugh | McClatchy Newspapers



WASHINGTON — Xernna Nieves, her four children and her sister, Sara, have for the past eight months lived in a single, cramped hotel room just outside of Atlanta.

Nieves, her sister and the two youngest children, both girls, sleep four to a bed. The boys, 15 and 12, sleep on the floor. In such close quarters, "We're getting on each others' nerves," Nieves said.

After nearly two years without a job, about the only thing that Nieves, 41, a former accounting worker, can count on is her unemployment insurance check; a $330-a-week lifeline that pays the rent, fills her gas tank and feeds her family when their $300-a-month food-stamp benefit runs out in mid month.

Barring any further action from Congress, however, Nieves' "lifeline" will be cut at the end of June.

That's when she's slated to join hundreds of thousands of jobless workers nationwide who've exhausted their maximum 99 weeks of unemployment benefits and face life with no meaningful income.

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