Branch hadn’t realized he had been on Extended Benefits, which kicked in after he exhausted 26 weeks of regular unemployment plus 13 additional weeks granted in the March pandemic stimulus bill. “Were you on EB? If so, EB was cut off Nov 21.” Branch’s post, using a common abbreviation for Extended Benefits, an emergency unemployment program. The next day, another user commented on Mr. Branch wrote on r/Unemployment, a Reddit forum whose popularity has skyrocketed during the pandemic. “I’m very confused and have no idea what to do,” Mr. He had failed to get useful information from his state's unemployment office before, so he turned to the one place he figured he could get an explanation: Reddit. But when he checked his bank account, he was troubled to find that the payments had stopped. Branch had been receiving unemployment benefits since he was laid off in March, and figured he would have no problem paying for the repairs. A 23-year-old former arcade employee in southern Virginia, Mr. In early December, Alex Branch’s car broke down.
