Additional unemployment benefits coming for some Georgians

Aug. 28--ATLANTA -- Some Georgians can expect additional unemployment dollars in the coming weeks. But the money won't last forever, labor officials said.

After President Donald Trump approved up to $44 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Administration's Disaster Relief Fund, the state labor department and elected officials were unsure how the extra money was going to be doled out.

This week, the Georgia Department of Labor announced the implementation of the Lost Wages Assistance Program that will distribute $300 in extra unemployment benefits to some.

Georgians will be eligible if they are already receiving at least $100 a week in state unemployment benefits. The original $600 federal benefits went to all individuals making more than $1 in benefits.

Unemployed Georgians do not need to call or apply for the additional benefit -- if eligible, the amount will automatically be added to regular unemployment benefits.

But like original CARES Act federal benefits, the task requires the creation of a new system that matches the FEMA criteria.

After an initial three-week period of FEMA funds, the state labor department is required to apply for the money each week after that until the program expires Dec. 27 or is terminated.

But labor officials suspect the funds will run out long before then.

"I know it will (run out)," Department of Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said Thursday. "There's only a finite amount of money."

Under the president's new additional benefits program, unemployed individuals could receive up to $400 extra; however, states are required to match 25% of funds. Butler said the additional $100 would cost the state an additional $100 million a week.

Trump's program is being implemented in lieu of federal benefit plans from Congress, which are stuck in a stalemate between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats argue some workers still feel unsafe going back to work while Republicans lament the additional unemployment benefits are disincentivizing people from returning to the workforce.

"Our preference would have been that Congress could have gotten together and compromised," Butler said. "... It would have been easier on all the states, not just Georgia, if they would have just come up with some way they were going to extend the (federal) payments."

The once robust state Unemployment Trust Fund has been depleted by the mass of unemployment filings during the pandemic. What was once sitting at more than $2.5 billion, the Georgia trust fund has lost 94% of its funds. As of March 25, the amount has dwindled to $156 million as of Aug. 25, according to the state Department of Labor.

Butler said the department has already put in a request for additional funding to the U.S. Treasury -- the first request around $1 billion. The department had to request additional dollars from the U.S. Treasury multiple times during the 2008 recession, he said.

"Even though we had one of the healthiest trust funds in the nation -- we are recognized having one of the better trusts in the nation," he said. "This type of pandemic can drain that very quickly -- and it did. The good news is we're hearing that there may be more money for the trust fund in the future."

The department's staff and funding has been regularly cut during the past years. When the pandemic first hit, only about 1,000 staff across the state were fielding upward of 100,000 calls a day.

"For the past 10 years, we've been underfunding department labor's around the nation -- not just Georgia," he said. "You've seen the state, over the last 10 years, redirect about $100 million that should be coming to us through administrative assessments, go toward other projects. That caused a lot of problems for us, but we've been able to weather through that and push on."

The stall for some Georgians in receiving unemployment benefits, Butler said, is not a backlog in processing regular initial unemployment claims, but the process of appeals and redeterminations of benefits. These "mini court cases" are handled by 26 trained staff who could be facing up to 100,000 appeals a month. The process requires gathering evidence from both the employer and former employee to determine benefit eligibility.

"You cannot program a computer to do those," he said. "Those take a very well-trained, experienced DOL person."

Initial unemployment claims have slowed since the tidal wave that came in March -- but the numbers are still extreme. After 18 consecutive weeks of more than 100,000 initial claims, numbers have dropped below 100,000 for a fifth consecutive week, according to the Department of Labor. Since March 21, the agency has issued $12.7 billion in state and federal unemployment benefits to Georgians.

From March 21 through Aug. 22, more than 3.5 million initial claims have been processed, according to the department, more than the last eight years combined.

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