California unemployment: State gets fed funds to pay extra $300 amid coronavirus

Aug. 24--California workers will be able to receive an additional $300 in unemployment benefits amid the cornavirus after the state agreed to participate in a program made possible through an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

The U.S. government's Lost Wages Assistance Program is tapping the Federal Emergency Management Agency for funding. The program replaces a prior program that provided $600 in extra weekly benefits for jobless workers during the pandemic.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved the state's application and will provide an initial amount of $4.5 billion, with the possibility of additional funding going forward," the Employment Development Department stated in a post on its website.

Gov. Gavin Newsom had initially cast doubt that California would be able to participate in the new program, which was offering $400 a week in unemployment benefits, with the state picking up $100 of that amount. Newsom said that would cost California $700 million a week.

The lower benefit amount enables the state to skirt making the contribution.

It might require a few weeks for the EDD to reformat its archaic computer systems to add the extra $300 payment.

This means that a worker with the maximum state payment of $450 a week could receive $750 a week. The worker receiving the average EDD payment of $287, as of June, could receive a weekly payment of $587.

The increase in benefits arrives with restrictions, however, the state agency warned. The revelation could intensify frustration and skepticism about how the agency administers its much-criticized unemployment benefits program.

Jobless workers must be eligible to receive at least $100 in weekly unemployment benefits, according to the EDD.

Unemployed California workers also must provide a certification that they are out of work, or have suffered reduced hours, due to disruptions that the coronavirus caused. The EDD didn't specify the best method to provide that certification.

Since state and local government agencies began to impose an array of business shutdowns in a quest to combat the deadly bug, a head-spinning 7.7 million California workers have filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits.

The EDD is mired in a mammoth backlog to pay jobless workers, a problem unleashed by the state agency's broken call center and glitch-hobbled computer system that is based on a primitive programming language that is at least 30 years old.

The embattled state agency has failed to provide firm estimates about the size of the backlog and precisely when it will catch up to the unpaid claims that require a response.

An estimated 1.13 million California workers might be due money from the EDD but are instead stuck in the state agency's bureaucratic limbo.

The EDD has only said that it hopes to catch up with payments to 239,000 workers whose claims are "awaiting EDD response."

Another 889,000 workers could potentially be owed payments by the EDD, but the state agency is demanding that the workers provide further information before the claims can be processed.

"We can't approve these claims at this time," EDD spokesperson Loree Levy said in early August, referring to the 889,000 workers.

The EDD warned that the additional $300 payments might not be a long-term supplement.

"The Lost Wages Assistance supplemental payment of $300 per week will be available for a limited period of time," the EDD stated.

The state agency didn't specify the expiration date for the benefits. It also didn't say when the extra payments might begin.

The supplemental money will be available for weeks of unemployment dating back to Aug. 1," the EDD stated.

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