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President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress hope to approve $ 1.9 trillion in additional relief from the pandemic, including extra unemployment benefits.
Still, many unemployed workers have yet to receive benefit payments for the latest stimulus package, which former President Trump signed more than a month ago.
States such as California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana and Virginia have not given this aid to some groups of workers, according to their respective unemployment agencies.
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The $ 900 billion relief measure, passed in late December, extended unemployment benefits for 11 weeks and increased pay by $ 300 a week.
Many states have been granting this assistance to workers in phases as they adjust their systems to take into account various features of the legislation.
As a result, some groups have waited longer than others.
“The complexity of some of the additional specifications is difficult to program and will be more burdensome, not just for us. [unemployment insurance] personal, but also for the plaintiffs, “said Mark Butler, Georgia’s labor commissioner, in January.
Some of those updates are underway, the Georgia Department of Labor said in a tweet Tuesday.
Biden’s plan would extend unemployment benefits through September and increase wages by $ 400 a week.
Exhaustion of unemployment benefits
Delays seem to be more frequent for workers who have been receiving benefits since early spring and have “exhausted” their aid, meaning they reach the maximum number of weeks allowed under the CARES Act.
That federal law limited the duration of aid through two temporary programs: unemployment assistance in pandemics, which pays benefits to the self-employed and others who do not meet the requirements for typical state assistance; and pandemic emergency unemployment compensation, which offered additional weeks of state benefits to the long-term unemployed.
It seems that restarting their benefits has taken longer than in other workers who had not yet reached the maximum weeks.
Colorado, for example, began issuing aid to workers Monday, with the exception of workers who had exhausted PUA and PEUC benefits.
According to a message posted on the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment website, the date for the “launch of Phase 2” has not yet been determined.
Californians who had run out of benefits are facing a similar situation, according to a spokesman for the Department of Employment Development, which did not provide a timeline for updating the system.
Virginia and Hawaii began paying those who had exhausted PUA benefits, but not those who ran out of PEUC benefits for long-term unemployment.
Hawaii will soon begin paying those benefits, said William Kunstman, a spokesman for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. He did not offer a specific chronology.
Virginia officials initially planned to issue the payments on Jan. 29. However, “the implementation date has changed,” according to the Employment Commission’s website. A spokesman did not immediately return any request for comment.
The $ 900 billion pandemic aid package created additional requirements for some workers to continue receiving aid. For example, beneficiaries of unemployment assistance in pandemic cases must present documents proving their self-employment. (The deadline is different for new applicants and for those who had been charged.)
Indiana officials will begin paying PUA benefits once these requirements are met. These “vouchers” were made available to state workers starting Jan. 29, according to the Labor Department.
“Additional requirements must be integrated before eligible payments can be released,” Butler said of Georgia.
They include increased identification verification requirements, a new mechanism for employers to report job denials and failure to return workers to workers, and additional fraud detection measures, he said.