Unemployment Has Been Extended: So When Will The Checks Come?

For the more than half a million Michigan residents who saw their unemployment benefits expire at the end of last week, they were offered some relief with eleventh-hour stimulus packages at both the federal and state levels.

In the waning days of 2020, Michigan Republican and Democratic lawmakers from both legislative chambers approved a $465 million relief package, extending state unemployment benefits to 26 weeks, six months, through March. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to sign the bill into law.

At nearly the same time, U.S. Congress passed a $900 billion relief package that would provide a federal supplement to unemployment insurance of $300 through mid-March, and extend Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) programs.

President Donald Trump last Tuesday called the bill a "disgrace," but he ultimately signed it Sunday evening after about 386,000 PUA claimants and the 234,000 PEUC filers in Michigan saw their benefits expire Saturday, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Labor.

The federal legislation would extend the PUA and PEUC programs until March 14. All claimants would also get a $300 supplemental benefit that would last through that same time period. With the maximum of $362 offered by the state, filers could get up to $662 weekly.

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The two stimulus packages represent yet another change to unemployment benefits since the early days of the pandemic in March. That month, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, Act, creating the PUA program along with granting an extra 13 benefit weeks for regular claimants, PEUC. It also added a $600 federal supplemental benefit.

That federal benefit expired at the end of July with Congress unable to reach another deal. Trump stepped in then, signing an executive order that added $300 weekly in federal funds. That benefit lasted six weeks.

Since September, when those funds expired, claimants in Michigan have received a maximum of $362 per week.

In October, another program kicked in, called Extended Benefits, or EB, a mostly federally funded program. The program starts when a state's jobless rate averages more than 8% for three consecutive months, and it offers an additional 20 weeks of benefits. To be eligible, claimants had to exhaust the 26 weeks of state benefits and the 13 weeks of PEUC.

That program is still available in Michigan, said Lynda Robinson, a spokesperson for Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency, and will end when the 13-week average of the Insured Unemployment rate drops below 5%. That hasn't happened yet.

"The agency is closely monitoring the activity and will notify claimants when EB is no longer available," she said.

While the EB program will continue, claimants of the PEUC and PUA programs should expect a delay in receiving their benefits, which are backdated to Dec. 27.

There's no estimate available yet for when benefits could resume, Robinson said, but she confirmed there will be a delay and the agency will work "as quickly as possible to implement the changes."

Uncertainty remains

It's still unclear who exactly will be eligible for the new set of benefits and how these various state and federal programs will interconnect with each other.

Kathy Shelton, a 59-year-old Auburn Hills resident, is worried because she's exhausted the 39 weeks of available PUA benefits, and doesn't know if she'll be eligible for the extension.

Shelton's career has been in flux ever since a contract under which she provided organic hot lunches to a local private school expired two years ago. She took that time to focus on her writing, working at a community newspaper, but Shelton was laid off due to budget constraints.

"I found that at this age, it's really hard to reinvent yourself," she said. "So I've struggled with my jobs and I have done a bunch of different things."

That only became more difficult in the pandemic. Finding a career was nearly impossible, she said, and even some temporary jobs she had dried up, such as driving a Kona shaved ice truck, senior care and nannying.

"When you're a floater who depends on a lot of different streams of income and they all stop, it's really, really hard to figure out how to make ends meet," Shelton said.

Shelton was able to receive PUA benefits early on in the pandemic, but after the $600 federal supplement expired, sometimes she was receiving just $20 a week in benefits on top of a part-time job at a call center that pays $11 an hour.

When the state's moratorium on evictions expired, she and her daughter were evicted from their apartment. Now, they're living in an extended-stay hotel and Shelton's car is about to get repossessed, she said.

"I'm out of my PUA — my weeks have expired — and I don't have any job prospects on the horizon," said Shelton. "They're saying the pandemic is going to get worse. And I'm in a really, really bad situation."

Temporary relief

Despite the fact that COVID-19 cases are rising around the country and businesses are permanently closing their doors, the action taken at the federal and state level will only provide temporary relief, economists and unemployment experts say.

The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute called the 11-week extension of PUA and PEUC benefits in a recent news release "wholly insufficient and guarantees millions will exhaust benefits by the middle of March, when the virus will still be surging and job openings will still be scarce relative to the number of job seekers."

Meanwhile, Democratic state lawmakers and claimant advocates have been calling for a permanent extension of unemployment benefits to 26 weeks, up from 20, along with an increase in the weekly benefit amount.

"This is a crisis for the Michigan worker," said Rep. Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, on a call with reporters last month. "We are behind other states."

She called the permanent addition of six extra benefit weeks "the difference between staying at home while looking for work and losing their home."

Contact Adrienne Roberts: amroberts@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Unemployment benefits have been extended. So when will the checks come?

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