In others there is a statutory limitation of between 400 and 500 weeks of payments.
In March, a report by the centre-right Policy Exchange thinktank concluded that the coalition's tightening of benefit sanctions – under which jobseekers can lose up to four weeks' of payments for missing an interview – was leaving many dependent on food handouts.
Extended unemployment insurance is federally-funded and gives the long-term unemployed up to 73 weeks of payments after they finish 26 weeks of state benefits.
He pointed to a continuing boost from new unemployment benefits passed in 2009 that gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after layoffs and didn't run out for many people until late 2011.
The costs for advertising a vacancy, conducting and processing interviews and the value of lost production until a new hire reaches full productivity are roughly two months of wage payments in Germany and ten weeks of wage payments in Switzerland.
The bill would give seven more weeks of government unemployment payments to workers who have exhausted their current jobless benefits.
There were still nearly 800,000 unemployed residents of New York state in December, but the number of them who were collecting unemployment benefits had declined significantly because so many had used up as many as 99 weeks of unemployment insurance payments.
A third of Universal Credit tenants surveyed were also so deep into arrears that they had been put into special measures where their rent is paid directly to their landlord – a provision that is automatically trigged after eight weeks of behind rent payments.
And unlike unemployed people who are not in this program, they have been told that they do not qualify for 13 extra weeks of unemployment insurance payments that the federal government agreed to pay for in March as part of a national economic stimulus plan.
It is an odd, dated argument, because it glosses over the fact that it is now very difficult to buy a non-flatscreen, non-plasma television, and that TVs are actually not that expensive (unless you opt for the BrightHouse 46-inch Samsung 3D television, which is £1,950.70, and will end up costing £3,744 over 156 weeks of £24 weekly payments).
