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Several states have already started administering the latest weekly increase of $ 300 in unemployment benefits, a week after President Donald Trump signed the Covid relief plan to expand federal unemployment assistance during the coronavirus pandemic.
Latest stimulus bill enacted on December 27, 2020 extends federal programs by 11 weeks to help freelancers, self-employed workers, on-demand workers and the long-term unemployed, and reinstates the weekly federal bonus that has expired in July 2020, this time at a reduced rate of $ 300 per week.
The president’s delay in signing the bill has led lawmakers and policy experts to fear the timing will cause a loss of benefits for some 12 million Americans and their families in the new year. But some state agencies were able to avoid a delay in payments for expiring programs and began issuing a weekly bonus of $ 300 to claimants starting this week, reflecting the benefit period that ended on 2 or Jan. 3, according to the state.
The volunteers behind the UnemploymentPUA.com site have created a tool to track where the additional $ 300 payments are already being made, based on information from state agencies as well as participatory updates from workers across the country.
Here are the states that have already started issuing or processing the weekly unemployment increase of $ 300 this week starting Tuesday morning:
- Arizona
- California (only available to those receiving state regular benefits or the federal state extended duration program)
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Washington DC
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New York
- North Carolina
- Rhode Island
- Tennessee
- Texas
- West Virginia
Workers in several states, including New York, California and Arizona, began taking advantage of the federal bonus on Monday, while other states plan to release it throughout the week.
State-by-state tracking is updated every few hours, a representative from UnemploymentPUA.com told CNBC Make It. According to the site, some states have also posted announcements that they will start issuing the last weekly payments of $ 300 next week, including:
- California (for those on PUA or PEUC)
- Maine
- Montana
- Caroline from the south
- Vermont
- Washington
Each state administers its own unemployment program, so it will vary when each is able to reprogram their system and pay the last jobless benefits from the Covid stimulus program. Experts predict that the increased payments of $ 300 will be made in the majority of states by mid-January. Some states may take longer to restore federal pandemic unemployment assistance, which supports on-demand workers and those not traditionally eligible for assistance, and pandemic unemployment compensation emergency, for the long-term unemployed.
However, all workers will be entitled to the full 11 weeks of extended benefits under the law, even if funds do not hit their accounts this week, and any late payments will be paid retroactively to December 27, 2020.
After the CARES Act was passed in March 2020, it took about a month for the 50 states and Washington, DC, to administer the weekly federal improvement, which at the time was set at $ 600 per week for the purpose help the average worker to recover. 100% of wages lost due to the pandemic.
With the latest bailout, some workers with mixed incomes from salary and freelance work could get an additional $ 100 on top of their benefits in the coming weeks through so-called mixed-wage unemployment compensation, or MEUC, although states will need to determine how to send these funds to eligible individuals.
States must choose to provide this assistance. So far, states, including Florida, Illinois, Minnesota and New York have declared their intention to do so.
Federal unemployment extensions are in effect until March 14. Benefits for PUA and PEUC cease until April 11.
Check-out:
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