ATLANTA, GEORGIA – Georgians who sign up for unemployment benefits stay on the dole a month less than folks in almost all other states do.
The State Labor Department reported the comparison today.
“Georgia has the lowest duration in the South for people requesting state unemployment benefits and nearly the lowest in the nation, second only to North Dakota, which has a significantly less-dense labor market.”
“As of December 2011, the average Georgian on state unemployment insurance stopped benefits after 13.3 weeks. Nationally, the average unemployed American stayed on state benefits for 17.4 weeks. Only North Dakota came in under Georgia. North Dakota, obviously, is a very different animal with total population under 675,000 and no metro base that can compare to Georgia’s.”
For comparison, a person could collect a full 26 weeks of state unemployment benefits in Georgia meaning most of our neighbors choose to find work in half that time.
As you might expect, the government bureaucracy in Atlanta wants to take full credit for the “work before benefits” attitude in the state.
“Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said Georgians stop their state unemployment payments sooner because the Georgia Department of Labor ties benefits to job training and to a bevy of re-employment services.”
“When people think of a labor department, traditionally they think of the ‘unemployment office,’” Commissioner Mark Butler said. “In Georgia, we are trying to stop that. This is an ‘employment office.’ We strive for that designation.”