The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) today provided the following updates and status on the federal unemployment programs expanded by HR 133, the Continuing Assistance Act (CAA) of 2021. CAA extends all federal programs from 27 December, 2020 to week ending March 13, 2021.
“We know how important these extensive benefits are to Nevadans, and it is our top priority to ensure that they receive them. We are working as fast as possible to implement all federal benefit programs, but need time to realize them in both systems and ask the public’s patience as we move forward to provide critical assistance to Nevadans, ‘said Elisa Cafferata, director of the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
PUA under the CAA:
The CARES Act established the PUA program in 2020. Self-employed and gig workers can accumulate benefits for up to 39 weeks. And the original PUA program expired on December 26, 2020.
For PUA, CAA added 11 weeks to the number of weeks a plaintiff can receive benefits in PUA for a maximum of 50 weeks.
Unlike the regular UI program, the PUA program has a expiry date. Under CAA, eligible claimants can collect benefits until April 10, 2021 or for a maximum of 50 weeks, whichever comes first.
States with high unemployment rates could offer a one-time extension of 7 weeks, which some PUA claimants began receiving in 2020. The Department of Labor is demanding that Nevada “eliminate” this expansion for PUA when the program expires on December 26, 2020. Unfortunately, this complication delayed the full implementation of the 11-week extension for PUA.
Status: DETR works with our vendor to ensure that eligible claimants can receive their weekly benefits for the full 11 weeks CAA PUA benefits, retroactive to December 27, 2020. DETR expects claimants to see these additional weeks in their portals before the end of the month.
Common user interface PEUC:
The CAA added 11 weeks of benefits for qualifying UI recipients.
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Status: In the regular user interface, the PEUC 11-week extension coding and testing is done. We have discovered that additional programming is needed to detect when plaintiffs exhaust the first 13 weeks of PEUC from the CARES Act, before switching to the 11-week PEUC of the Continuing Assistance Act. This computer programming is now being tested. Once the test has passed, we can deploy it and payments will start running out. Claims get all the weeks they are entitled to by continuing their weekly claims.
FPUC for standard user interface and for PUA:
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act reinstated the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation Program (FPUC) and gave an additional $ 300 benefit to claims paid for the weeks from December 27, 2020 to week ended March 13, 2021 .
Status: This benefit programming has been implemented in most programs and payments have been issued, along with unemployment benefits to eligible claimants in both UI and PUA, without the need for further claim from claimants.
Claims awaiting updated programming to receive the extended benefits for the Continuing Assistance Act will receive any FPUC weeks they are eligible for as their benefit payments are made up.
Extensive benefits for high unemployment:
States with high unemployment rates could offer a one-time extension of 7 weeks, which some PUA claimants began receiving in 2020. Claims that started receiving Extended Benefits (EB) in 2020 could receive the balance of their 7 weeks in 2021, as long as the unemployment rate remains.
DETR originally announced that due to the high average unemployment rate in Nevada, the state would be able to offer the state an additional 7 weeks of extended benefits (EB) for plaintiffs who have exhausted their claims. In a standard user interface, DETR was able to offer this benefit immediately to claimants who qualified.
Unfortunately, because the PUA program expired on December 26, 2020, the Department of Labor requires Nevada to wait 13 weeks before adding 7-week Extended Benefits (EB) for PUA claimants who have exhausted their claims. This could create a two-week gap for many PUA recipients.
Status: To avoid the gap, DETR is finalizing emergency regulations that will allow the agency to apply the additional 7 weeks and issue payments without having to wait 13 weeks for the federal mandate. The emergency regulations must be signed by the agency administration and the governor before being submitted to the legislature, which has 15 days to review them. DETR is on schedule to implement these emergency regulations a week before the 11 weeks of CAA PUA benefits emissions. PUA claimants will be able to receive EB for the seven weeks without interrupting the benefits.
LWA:
Status: Although we requested additional funds from FEMA, we did not receive sufficient LWA funding to pay for week 6. Any remaining funds will be used to pay week 1-5 for people awaiting judgment or appeal and ultimately for the benefit in those weeks. No claim from plaintiffs is required to receive this benefit.
All extensions:
It is important to note that these federal programs usually end the week on March 13, 2021, unless Congress extends them. And the extensions require extra computer programming. If they wait too long to expand the programs, we may experience another gap in benefits.
Claims may not realize that their benefits, even with these extensions, may have temporarily lapsed due to federal rules. For example:
- A PUA claimant who started on 2/2/20 would have received the PUA maximum of 2020 on 39 October 2020 on 31 October 2020 – exhausting their PUA claim.
- They would then have been eligible for extended benefits, and those 7 weeks would have ended on December 19, 2020 – exhausting their PUA + EB claim.
- Under CAA, the next 11 weeks will end on March 13, 2021.
DETR encourages plaintiffs to visit http://ui.nv.gov/css.html [ui.nv.gov] and detr.nv.gov/coronavirus [detr.nv.gov] to see important announcements and access to essential resources. Additional updates will be provided as information becomes available.