Tier III Benefits

• Tier III benefits are a part of the 2008 legislation that offers funding to extend unemployment benefits to long-term unemployed workers. The third tier of extensions allows 13 additional weeks of benefits to claimants in states that report either a 13-week insured unemployment rate of four percent or a three-month adjusted seasonal unemployment rate of six percent. Emergency unemployment compensation may be funded by the federal government, but your state manages the claims, including eligibility and distribution.
  
  

Eligibility

• You must continue to follow all of the eligibility rules that applied for your original unemployment claim, including conducting a job search and filing for payments. However, an important additional requirement is that you exhaust all previously available benefits before collecting the third tier of extensions. These previous benefits include your regular state benefits, the Tier I extension and the Tier II extension. The previous benefits must be exhausted on or before January 3, 2012 for you to be eligible.
  
  

Application Process

• Many states automatically review each exhausted claim for eligibility for the next extension tier. If you qualify, the state will send you a notice explaining that you've been approved for the next tier. Other states require you to submit a new application every time you move to a new tier of unemployment, including the third tier. If you're unsure if your state auto-enrolls or requires a separate application, contact your state's labor office for more information.
  
  

Compensation Amount

• Tier III compensation amounts are the same as your state offered you during your original benefit period. The emergency unemployment compensation laws only provide extra weeks of payments, not an adjustment of the amount. Your compensation amount is determined by your state's laws but in general, your base period wages are used in the calculation. Base period wages are the money you received from an employer during the first four of the last five full calendar quarters before your original filing date. Generally, your weekly benefit amount is about half of the average weekly salary you earned during your base period.