High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 99ers is a colloquial term for unemployed people in the United States, mostly citizens, who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits, including all unemployment extensions. As a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress in February 2009, many unemployed people can receive up to 99 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits, hence the name "99ers". An estimated 7 million people are affected.