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President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats hope to pass $ 1.9 billion in additional pandemic relief, including additional unemployment benefits.
Yet many unemployed workers have yet to receive benefit payments from the latest incentive package signed by former President Trump more than a month ago.
According to their respective unemployment agencies, states such as California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana and Virginia have not provided assistance to some groups of workers.
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The $ 900 billion emergency aid company, which was implemented at the end of December, extended unemployment benefits by 11 weeks and increased payments by $ 300 per week.
Many states have issued the assistance to employees in phases as they adjust their systems to take into account different parts of the legislation.
As a result, some groups waited longer than others.
‘The complexity of some of the additional specifications is difficult to program and will be a greater burden, not just for us [unemployment insurance] staff, but also to plaintiffs, ”Georgia’s labor commissioner Mark Butler said in January.
Some of these updates continue, the Georgia Department of Labor said in a tweet Tuesday.
Biden’s plan would extend unemployment benefits until September, increasing pay by $ 400 a week.
Exhausted unemployment benefits
Delays seem to be the most common for employees who have been collecting benefits since early spring and have “exhausted” their assistance, meaning they have achieved the maximum number of weeks allowed under the CARES Act.
That federal law limited the duration of assistance through two temporary programs: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which pays benefits to the self-employed and others who are not eligible for typical state assistance, and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which offered extra weeks of state benefits to the long-term unemployed .
It seems to take longer than the start of their benefits than for other workers who have not yet reached their maximum weeks.
Colorado, for example, began helping workers on Monday – with the exception of workers who used up PUA and PEUC benefits.
According to a report on the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment website, the date for the “phase 2 implementation” has not yet been determined.
According to a Department of Employment spokesman, California exhausts have a similar situation, which did not offer a timeline for system updates.
Virginia and Hawaii began to pay those who had exhausted PUA benefits, but not those who ran out of PEUC benefits for the long-term unemployed.
William Kuntsman, a spokesman for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, will soon start paying the benefits. He did not offer a specific timeline.
Virginia officials originally planned to issue the payments on Jan. 29. However, according to the Employment Commission’s website, the implementation date has changed. A spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.
The $ 900 billion pandemic relief package has created additional requirements for some workers to continue receiving aid. For example, PUA recipients must submit documents to prove their own service. (The time frame differs for new applicants and those who have collected.)
Indiana officials will begin paying out PUA benefits once the requirements are resolved. According to the Department of Labor Development, these ‘vouchers’ were made available to workers in the state from 29 January.
“The additional requirements must be integrated before eligible payments can be released,” Butler said of Georgia.
These include increased identification verification requirements, a new mechanism for employers to report refusal of employment and failure to return to work by employees, and additional fraud detection measures, he said.