From staff reports
The state Department of Labor & Industry said it’s working to resolve issues claimants have encountered in trying to resume receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits.
Both programs, which expired at the end of December, have resumed as part of the new federal CARES Act extensions.
Jennifer Berrier, acting L&I secretary, said in a news release that although payments were issued to many claimants over the past four days, the department is aware some people have encountered issues.”We understand the frustration of the claimants who’ve been waiting for their payments to resume – we are frustrated, too, and are working to make it right,” Berrier said.
According to the release, nearly 115,000 PEUC program payments have been issued since Sunday, the day the program reopened.
Claimants can file for the 11 additional weeks provided by the extension, which is on top of 13 weeks provided in the original CARES Act, the release said.
The PEUC program adds a total of 24 weeks to the number of eligible weeks a claimant has through the regular Unemployment Compensation (UC) program.
L&I reopened the PUA program on Friday. Since then, the release said, claimants have filed close to 420,000 weeks for the program, which assists workers who are not eligible for regular UC, such as gig workers, freelancers and self-employed workers.