About 15,000 jobless Rhode Island residents who have run out of their state unemployment insurance benefits, including 5,100 with children, are expected to qualify for up to 13 weeks of additional payments under federal legislation signed on Monday by President Bush, a state labor official said yesterday.

The federal unemployment benefits extension — part of a spending bill that includes additional money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — would dramatically increase the number of jobless Rhode Islanders who might be eligible for the extended payments under a previously announced state extension program, according to Raymond A. Filippone, the state Department of Labor and Training’s assistant director of income support.

The federal extension also ensures that the cost of the additional payments will be financed entirely by the federal government.

The additional unemployment benefits are being offered to all states, regardless of their unemployment rates.

To be eligible, residents must be classified as unemployed with a benefit year that ended on or after May 5, 2007. (To be classified as unemployed, a resident must be available and actively seeking work.)

In Rhode Island, nearly 23,000 unemployed residents have a benefit year that ended on that date and are no longer receiving unemployment, Filippone said, but only 30 to 40 percent of those people — or about 15,100 — are expected to be eligible for the federal extension, he said, based on prior benefit extension programs. The other 60 to 70 percent, he said, probably will not qualify, either because they have found other employment or because they’re not available and actively seeking jobs.

The federal program expands the pool of potentially eligible claimants in Rhode Island to more than 15,000, from 8,000 to 10,000 under the state program, because the federal law extends the eligibility to people whose benefit year ended 14 months ago. (The state extension would have applied only to those whose benefits expired as of the middle of this month.)

The “emergency” unemployment benefit extension program is outlined in an agreement between state and federal officials signed yesterday by Governor Carcieri.

The state administers the unemployment benefits, which normally are financed fifty-fifty by state and federal unemployment insurance taxes, which are paid by employers.

In Rhode Island, unemployment benefits replace about 60 percent of gross, taxable earnings up to a maximum of $513 per week. For people with children, the state also provides a dependency allowance.

State unemployment benefits usually run from 8 to 26 weeks. The federal program will extend those benefits anywhere from 4 to 13 additional weeks, Filippone said, depending on the individual’s earnings and length of employment when the original claim was filed.

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate in May jumped to 7.2 percent, the second-highest in the country, after Michigan, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of unemployed Rhode Island residents in May climbed to 41,100, the highest since July 1993, the state reported.

That increase pushed Rhode Island’s three-month average unemployment rate to 6.5 percent, triggering the state benefit extension, which is now being replaced with the federal program.

The 15,000 unemployed Rhode Islanders potentially eligible for the federal benefit extensions include an estimated 5,100 with “dependent” children, according to state labor department data. Only those who were receiving additional benefits for dependent children at the time that their original claims were filed will be eligible for the additional money under the extended program, Filippone said.

The state will mail notices to people who are eligible for extended benefits. To determine your eligibility, you must call during designated hours from July 7 through July 26. The extended benefit claims will be processed alphabetically, starting with the first letter of the person’s last name, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. weekdays, and Saturdays 9 a.m. to noon. For more information, go to www.dlt.ri.gov.

State labor officials expect to begin issuing payments during the week ending July 19.

larditi@projo.com