(FREEP) — About 2 million jobless Americans fear they’ll lose their extended unemployment benefits, which are slated to end next month unless Congress votes to renew them.
Their concerns make a new finding all the more puzzling: Many people eligible for unemployment don’t even bother to collect it.
In the depths of the recession in 2008 and 2009, only half of those who qualified for benefits applied, a study by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank shows.
The portion filing for benefits shot up to 95% in 2010 and 2011, the study says, but that still means about 200,000 people didn’t claim money to which they were entitled.
