Only 28 Percent Of The Unemployed Receive Government Benefit Payments: Down From 67 Percent In 2010

From The Wall Street Journal, Real Time Economics, "Less Than a Third of Unemployed Americans Get Benefit Checks" by Eric Morath:

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Those receiving government payments last month represented less than 28% of all unemployed Americans, according to an analysis of Labor Department data. That figure is down from 31% a year earlier. And it’s well below the 67% who received the assistance in September 2010, when emergency federal programs extended benefits beyond the 26 weeks granted in most states, to as long as 99 weeks.***When benefits expire, unemployed workers frequently face two likely outcomes: They accept lower-paying work or they drop out of the labor force. Both choices were common among those who lost benefits in North Carolina in 2013.

Those who drop out might have found that it makes financial sense to retire, return to school, stay at home to care for children or older adults, or seek out other forms of government assistance. Each of those choices could remove a person from the labor force. The labor-force participation rate has been trending at the lowest levels since the 1970s.