The National Board uses a formula involving population,
poverty, and unemployment data to determine the eligibility of a civil jurisdiction.
There is no national application process. Poverty data is from the American Community Survey (ACS) (source: U.S. Bureau of the Census);
unemployment data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Poverty figures from the ACS 5-year average period of 2013-2017 were used in Phase 36.
For fiscal year 2018 funding, jurisdictions qualified for funding if they met one of
the following criteria:
Number of unemployed: 300 or more with a 4.9% rate of unemployment
Number of unemployed: 300 or more with a 15.6% rate of poverty
The actual award amounts are determined by dividing the available funds by the number
of unemployed persons within each jurisdiction that qualifies. Jurisdictions that
do not qualify under the formula and thus do not receive funding directly from the
National Board may receive funds through the
State Set-Aside process, and jurisdictions that do qualify may receive additional
funding the same way.