In Georgia, the unemployment rate has topped 7 percent. Some residents are taking lower-paying jobs or part-time work to try to make ends meet before the benefits run out. Others are running out of benefits and options before finding a new job in a tight job market.

Congress stepped in last week with a 13-week extention of unemployment benefits in states were the unemployment rate tops 6 percent, as it does in Georgia.

An economist with the Economic forecasting Center at Georgia State predicts that by the end of 2009, Georgia will have lost 147,000 jobs in the economic downturn.

While the federal money helps, the growing unemployment rate is draining the resources of state governments across the country. Economists are forecasting that the United States will lose 2 million jobs in 2009. And that is on top of the 1 million jobs lost so far this year.

That federal help also comes at an expense. If state governments haven’t got the reserves to pay the unemployment benefits, they are given the funds as a loan from the federal government. If the funds aren’t repaid quickly, the states must pay interest on the loan.

Repaying those loans, may mean that employers will pay higher unemployment insurance taxes down the road. Georgia’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance stands at around $1 billion, and is expected to need no help from the federal government to pay benefits in the short term. But Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said recently that he could not rule out raising those taxes down the road.