As jobless rates continue to rise, states are struggling to keep up with unemployment insurance claims. ProPublica reported that 25 states have already run out of funds or borrowed to keep up with the demand for unemployment insurance. Are there any creative solutions? Which states are hurting the most?

Minnesota’s Dislocated Worker Program has given some people an alternative to staying on unemployment benefits, but has it provided real opportunities? Minnesota Public Radio’s Public Insight Network followed Tom Koller, who’s gone from laid off machinist to Sun Microsystems credentialed network administrator.

It’s not clear the credential will deliver a job. The market, he [Koller] says, is looking worse than when he began training last year. He says he initially saw about 12 to 14 postings a week for computer system administrators…Koller, 50, is one of the tens of thousands of Minnesotans thrown out of work in this recession and among an unknown number retraining for a new industry because their old jobs will not be coming back.

Should the federal government step in with similar job training programs? A quiz from KQED’s You Decide provides the pros and cons.

Across the country, unemployment funds are drying up. Last summer, WBEZ reporter Adriene Hill told the stories of people in Chicago learning to live with less when unemployment benefits ran out.

The social safety net, set up to help people get through rough stretches, is showing its limits. A spokesman with the Illinois Department of Employment Security says thousands of people could exhaust their unemployment benefits in the next two or three weeks. And, by the end of the year, there could be 40,000 people no longer getting unemployment checks.

In Massachusetts, Boston blogger JiKamins was trying to file for unemployment just this week, when he found that he couldn’t get into the state’s new unemployment insurance web site, which was swapped to an electronic system recently.

“The two DUA employees with whom I spoke today both said that the new system is having innumerable problems across the board, ” he complained in a post.

ProPublica’s unemployment tracker lets you check the current status of unemployment funds in your state. If you have a story to share about how unemployment insurance is affecting you, share it with ProPublica here.