KERA’s Shelley Kofler broke a story last week that Texas would have to borrow money from the federal government to help  pay for rising unemployment benefits this month.

Today, Dallas Morning News reporter Robert T. Garrett writes that the Texas Workforce Commission confirmed that the unemployment trust fund would run out of money early next week and the state will have to borrow $643 million to cover claims through Oct. 1.

In addition, Robert writes that some 82,000 unemployed Texans scheduled to exhaust their benefits this week would not receive immediate 13-week extensions as expected.

A TWC spokeswoman blamed the delay – which could be at least a couple months – on stringent federal rules for accessing the benefits and state computer problems.

The news comes at a time when unemployment levels are rising. The DMN story notes that about 285,000 Texans were on unemployment compensation in the six weeks ending June 27 – nearly triple the number from a year earlier.

As of early June, 14 states had run out of money to pay for unemployment benefits and were forced to borrow from the federal government. Source KERA

So the jobless numbers contain more pain and stress than we might imagine. If you lose your job, you will lose your home. If you cannot get a job again quickly, you may have nothing.

We have not talked much about this yet – there is a lot at stake – there is a lot that we can do.