(Updated, 1:10 p.m.)

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Friday signed legislation that extends unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks in Rhode Island and other states hit hard by job losses.

The bill also extends the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit through next April and creates a $6,500 credit for homeowners who have lived in their current residences for five years or more.

The House of Representatives voted 403-12 to approve the $24 billion measure on Thursday, a day after it cleared the Senate. The U.S. unemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, the Labor Department said Friday.

“The need for such a measure was made clear by the jobs report that we received this morning,” Obama told reporters gathered in the White House Rose Garden, according to The Associated Press. He called it a “sobering number that underscores the economic challenges that lie ahead” and said his administration would continue working to boost the job market.

The House had passed alternative legislation extending unemployment benefits in September, but the proposal got held up in the Senate for more than a month because of disagreements among lawmakers.

The bill provides 14 weeks of extra benefits to unemployed Americans in every state, and six more weeks beyond that in Rhode Island and other states with jobless rates of 8.5 percent or more.

The jobless rate in Rhode Island was 13 percent in September, according to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training (DLT).

The law extends the amount of time out-of-work Rhode Islanders can receive unemployment checks to a maximum of 99 weeks, or more than a year and a half. The state offers one of the most generous benefits in the country, with a maximum benefit of $546 without dependents or $682 with five dependents. (The amount that jobless workers receive is based on their salaries before they lost their jobs.)

The economic stimulus law the president signed in February added an extra $25 payment to unemployment benefits and made the first $2,400 in benefits tax free.

In Rhode Island, about 4,000 people had exhausted their unemployment benefits as of Wednesday, according to DLT. Officials are projecting an average exhaustion rate of 150 people a week in the coming months, which would bring the total number of exhaustions to about 5,000 by the end of the year.

DLT said it will notify by mail individuals who are eligible for the extension once details become available. General information will be posted online at dlt.ri.gov.