Congress ended it with unemployment benefits when it approved the American Rescue Plan, which extended benefits just days before the March 14 expiration date. President Biden signed the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package on Thursday, ensuring that benefits, which now include a $ 300 per week supplement, are extended to Labor Day.
Although the state’s Department of Employment Development had to renew its systems with all the complexities of the new regulations, he said on Friday that people who are receiving benefits for less than a year should automatically get the extension.
But at the same time, EDD has two other major projects to tackle. It must attend to the large number of people who have been unemployed for 12 months, which requires a new process. He must also collect and verify documents from self-employed workers who receive Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, according to new federal rules to eliminate fraud.
This could create a bottleneck in the state agency, which struggled year round with the rise of the unemployment complaints pandemic.
Many people are approaching the 12-month mark, as the gigantic demand for unemployment insurance started a year ago this week and continued to reach historic levels in April and May. After applying again, EDD must assess your eligibility status and status to decide whether to be covered by regular state unemployment or new federal benefits.
EDD initially gave an ambiguous answer on how it will handle the situation, before saying that it could add the benefits of the American Rescue Plan to many claimants.
“We always have to schedule new changes to the federal benefits in our system, including start and end dates,” EDD spokeswoman Loree Levy said in an email on Thursday. “So now that we have a sense of what is being approved at the federal level, we can seek guidance from the United States Department of Labor and make some assessments of what will be needed to implement the new provisions.”
Some lawmakers, who were frustrated by the agency’s slow pace, were more direct in their assessments.
“Given how difficult it was to implement the previous extension in December, I am concerned,” said Assembly member David Chiu, D-San Francisco, whose office is surrounded by constituents who need help with its benefits. “I sincerely hope that EDD has learned from previous experience and has a real plan to get the benefits that are due to them without delay or hassle.”
To say the least, EDD does not have a long history of rapidly implementing new resources or addressing massive increases in demand.
Late last year, when benefits expired for just a day before being reinstated by the federal government on December 27, EDD said a programming problem prevented it from reinstating them to people whose benefits had expired before December 26. December. Until March 7, before, the affected people, who numbered around 185,000, could begin to qualify for extended benefits, leaving them unpaid for about three months.
As executive director of the Center for Workers’ Rights in Sacramento, Daniela Urban helps countless claimants struggling to get paid. “I am hopeful that EDD anticipated this extension and has a plan in place on how to implement it with minimal disruptions or loopholes,” she said by email.
Still, the fact that millions of people are reaching their one-year anniversary of unemployment is worrying. “The accumulation of complaints tends to grow, especially for complainants who may have difficulty filling out ID.me,” she said, referring to the external supplier who handles identity verification.
Andrew Stettner, a senior member of the Century Foundation who studies unemployment, said he fears there may be an impasse in California and other states.
“I was thrilled at how challenging these changes are,” he said. “The load on these systems is high and they need to be careful when making changes.”
Part of the blame lies at the federal level.
“Congress has not given state agencies enough time,” said Stettner. “They are very proud that the president signed the project two days before the benefits ended. This is not a long time. “
Meanwhile, people already hit by the whims of getting benefits are anxious about what the latest changes could mean.
San Franciscano Matt Ruffin, 40, was already struggling to survive with three jobs – as an assistant manager at the Orpheum Theater, a presenter at Equinox Sports Club and a receptionist at Sharon Art Studio. When the pandemic started, he was released from the three.
He managed to get unemployment insurance until mid-December, when it stopped abruptly. It could be among the 1.4 million accounts that EDD froze on suspicion of fraud, or among the 185,000 that could not be recertified by March.
“There was no explanation from EDD as to why I was not paid,” he said. “If they made a mistake or had a failure, they didn’t tell me.”
He spent hours calling EDD and was told several times that everything looked fine, but it still hasn’t been paid. State lawmakers also tried to help, which earned him a week of paid benefits, while the rest still languished.
In the meantime, he is juggling accounts and borrowing money from friends and family. Your $ 1,400 stimulus check will go immediately to pay the rent, “but at least I won’t have to borrow money this month,” he said.
“With the stimulus package, I am concerned that this could cause EDD problems, especially for people like my roommates or my brother or former co-workers who avoided the first batch of problems,” said Ruffin. “I am hopeful that signing it before it expires will prevent this from being the result, but I have lost all confidence in EDD.”
Carolyn Said is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @csaid