Alger Daniel of Rome hasn’t worked since the December of 2008 when the box plant at Temple Inland in Coosa shut down. His unemployment benefits expired in June and since that time, his family has been living on his wife’s income. She is a cafeteria worker in the Rome schools. “We were able to up some money for a rainy day,” Daniel said. “I’ve got a strong faith and that’s been helping us out, too.”

Daniel said he was forced to sign up for food stamps and admitted to choking back his pride to do so. “I’ve worked since 1979,” Daniel said. “As head of the house I’ve always wanted to provide for my wife and family. Sometimes you just have to go that way.”

Daniel is contemplating culinary school at Georgia Northwestern Technical College once he completes his GED. “Me and my wife are thinking about a catering business, something that we know business will be there,” Daniel said.

Longtime unemployed Coosa Valley residents should be getting extended benefit checks within a matter of days as a result of Congress’ passage of The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010, titled as H.R. 4213. The Georgia Department of Labor cannot say exactly how many people will be getting the new benefits on a county-by-county or region-by-region basis but reports that the first round of checks statewide totaled more than $76.1 million.

The new benefits will not be allocated to anyone who has already drawn unemployment for 99 weeks and the additional jobless payments will only be offered through the end of November, according to Linda Liles in Congressman Phil Gingrey’s Rome office. The checks won’t come a moment to soon for Daniel and several of the long-term unemployed in the Rome area.

Perla Nguyen, of Rome, has been out of work since she was laid off at Pierre Foods in Rome almost 14 months ago. She received her last unemployment check more than a month ago and is very grateful that her husband still has a job and that they are able to support their daughter.

“We didn’t buy everything on her back to school list, but we did get most of it,” Nguyen said. “I’m glad I only have one child.”

She said that there was no family vacation this summer and that the family is only buying items that they need to get by.

Like so many others, Nguyen is enrolled in the GED program at Georgia Northwestern Technical College. “I would like to go on and take more classes to help me become a social worker, or perhaps a translator,” Nguyen said. She is fluent in Spanish.

Nguyen has been bringing her blue slips to the college each week in hopes that legislation would be passed to extend her benefits.

Lucy Hale is the Workforce Investment Act Coordinator at GNTC. “We do think some people are starting to get anxious, Hale said. “These people are getting rid of every expense that’s discretionary,” said Hale. “Children and families are really pulling together.”

State Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond extended a glad hand to President Barack Obama and Congress for legislation expanding the extended benefits claim filing period for jobless Americans through Nov. 30. “Record-high levels of unemployment have created difficult economic situations for jobless Georgians and their families,” Commissioner Thurmond said. “These additional resources will help jobseekers who qualify provide food, clothing and shelter while they seek employment.”

Hale said one of the truly sad aspects of this economic situation is that there is an increasingly large number of families where both parents are presently unemployed. “People are having to turn to extended family members just to get by,” Hale said.

Robbie Young, of Plainville, got his last unemployment check in early June. He worked at the Mohawk spinning plant in Calhoun until it shut down in February 2009. His wife doesn’t work and he has three children.

Two of the youngsters are special needs children who receive Supplemental Security Income checks each month. Today, those SSI checks are the only thing that keeps the Young family going. Young’s wife makes sure that the first thing that gets paid each month is the mortgage. “She guarantees that gets paid,” Young said.

Young said that his wife makes the rounds of the food banks to help stretch the family’s thin income, a little more than $1,200 a month from the two SSI checks. His mother also helps out as much as possible.

Young is enrolled in the GED program at Georgia Northwestern Technical College and once he gets the GED, hopes to continue into the auto mechanic program.

Carolyn Brown from Calhoun lost her job at a textile mill in October of 2008. She received her final unemployment check from the state earlier this month.

“Right now I live with my brother and he’s paying all of the bills,” Brown said. She’s taking care of a granddaughter who is a special needs child and draws a little more than $600 a month in SSI benefits. “The hardest thing right now is not being able to do things for her that she needs,” Brown said.

Like Young, Brown is enrolled in the GED program at GNTC in Calhoun. When she receives the GED, she hopes to continue at the technical college to get a degree in the medical field.

The new extended benefit package will provide additional unemployment assistance to the long term unemployed, but not for anyone who has drawn benefits for 99 weeks.

The unemployment in Floyd County was 10.6 percent in June, the same as the rate for the entire 15-county Northwest Georgia region.