INDIANAPOLIS | Hoosiers out of work for more than 26 weeks and collecting unemployment will see their weekly benefit payments shrink 10.7 percent starting April 8.
The U.S. Department of Labor, which pays benefits in weeks 27 through 63 of unemployment, this month ordered the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, which administers those benefits, to enact the cut as soon as possible.
The reduction is due to automatic federal budget cuts, known as the sequester, which will eliminate $85 billion in federal spending through September.
A typical unemployment claimant receiving $275 a week in federally extended unemployment benefits will see his or her weekly payment drop to $245.57 once the reduction takes effect.
Hoosiers in their first 26 weeks of unemployment will not be affected as those benefits are paid with state funds.
Prior to the sequester taking effect March 1, DWD announced it would cancel all payments for the 32,000 Hoosiers receiving federally extended unemployment benefits.
That decision was reversed Feb. 27 after the U.S. Department of Labor said it wouldn't immediately reduce unemployment funds paid to the states, though it warned cuts eventually would come if the sequester were not undone by Congress.
Budget plans currently under consideration by Congress would continue the sequester cuts into the 2014 federal budget year, which begins Oct. 1.