Questions about getting jobless benefits in California? We have your answers
Here are the most important things to know in California if you’re suddenly out of work:
If you’ve been laid off from a job where your employer contributes to the state’s unemployment insurance program — which means most employees in the state — you can apply for regular state unemployment benefits, up to $450 a week, and the state Employment Development Department will automatically add another $600 a week.
The extra dollars, which are federal funds that come from the economic aid package approved in Washington March 27, will cover each week of regular benefits an impacted worker gets between March 29 and July 31, 2020.
It would all come in one payment added to the individual’s EDD Debit Card every two weeks. A few people receive checks through the mail.
Here’s more:
▪ If your hours are reduced for a coronavirus-related reason, you can get some benefits even if you’re still working.
▪ The state department plans to staff phone lines every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., starting Monday. No phone number has been announced yet.
▪ If you’re one of the millions of self-employed, gig workers or independent contractors, you can probably get benefits under a new program established by the federal law, called the CARES Act, being developed by the the state for launch on April 28 The program is called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.
Go ahead and apply on April 28 when the application becomes available and look for updates on the EDD’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance webpage. Up to 39 weeks of benefits will be available through this program.
Those are the easy answers as California and the country grapple with the biggest burst of unemployment since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Another 660,966 new claimants filed for benefits with the state last week, bringing the total since the coronavirus outbreak began sinking the economy last month at 2.7 million.
Here are some answers to questions posed by Sacramento Bee readers from the Employment Development Department’s website and spokeswoman Loree Levy:
The $600 payments
This benefit began as of March 29. People now getting state benefits should see an extra $1,200 added to their cards every two weeks starting with any payment due at the end of the bi-weekly period on Saturday. People certifying for those weeks on Sunday would get the payment for the previous two weeks.
If someone already got their regular state benefit, which covered the week ending April 4, they should soon get a separate $600 payment retroactively for that week.
New claimants will follow the same pattern. They will get the extra $1,200 placed on their debit card every other week, as long as they are confirmed eligible for a regular benefit payment each of those weeks.
The $600 payment is now scheduled to stop at the end of July.
The department says it “has been able to adjust usual eligibility requirements due to the unique circumstances of this pandemic which helps us streamline the processing of an unprecedented volume of claims.”
Some readers have been stymied by application questions about whether they are willing to accept other employment. Answering no, Levy said, “should not affect eligibility for benefit payments under the current circumstances.”
Self-employed: Eligibility
Understanding the process can be complicated. Here is some advice from Levy: “If you are self-employed, you may have benefits available from EDD employment insurance programs that you or your employer may have paid into over the past five to 18 months.
“You may have contributions from a prior job, or you could have been misclassified as an independent contractor instead of an employee,” she said. In these cases, a self-employed individual or independent contractor could be eligible for regular unemployment benefits.
If these people are not found to be eligible for the regular benefits, they could be eligible under the new federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Those qualified for benefits include someone unavailable to work because of the coronavirus outbreak and someone who owns a business, is self-employed, a gig worker or independent contractor not participating in the state’s unemployment insurance coverage program.
Self-Employed: Work History
You should apply if you do not have the usual work history; in other words, you don’t have enough pay reported as an employee during the last 18 months that would have established a regular claim.
If you don’t have that work history, you have to have been working recently or had a genuine offer to start working on a specific date but were unable to do for a coronavirus-related reason.
Also eligible are people who exhausted their regular benefits and can’t find work for a coronavirus-related reason.
Retroactivity
Certain benefits can be retroactive to February 2 if you can show you were unemployed due to circumstances involving the coronavirus outbreak, even though the federal economic aid packages were not approved until March.
“When you apply and your application is approved, you will get PUA benefits going back to the first full week of February as long as you can show that your inability to work happened then and was COVID-19 related,” Levy said.
Extra Weeks
Instead of the 26 weeks of benefits that had been provided through the state’s regular unemployment insurance program, the new federal law allows people to get an additional 13 weeks of federally-paid extension benefits available through the end of this year.
How It works
People receiving unemployment benefits get a debit card. Every two weeks, their latest benefits are added.
Usually it takes three weeks from the time someone files an application until they start receiving benefits, as long as there are no complications that always take more time. That includes information received that doesn’t match the department’s wage records or the agency can’t verify the person’s identity.
California Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Julie Su has pledged that once the new PUA program is running, it can get people caught up within a few days on their PUA benefits.
They may be eligible for those benefits starting February 2 if their work was affected then. Once they are caught up, which could take a few weeks, these claimants will revert to the typical bi-weekly cycle used by beneficiaries on the regular state unemployment insurance system.
Criteria for PUA Benefits
It’s a lengthy list. If a health care provider advised you to self-quarantine, you or a member of your household has been diagnosed with the virus or you are providing care for a family member or someone in your household with the illness, you qualify.
You can also get benefits if the emergency prevents you from reaching your place of work, you are the primary caregiver for a child unable to attend a closed school or you were unable to start your new job because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Partial Work Reductions
You can collect some regular unemployment insurance program benefits if your normal work hours are reduced due to circumstances beyond your control.
The first $25 or 25% of your wages, whichever is more, is not regarded as income. It will not be reduced from your benefit amount.
Levy gave this example: If you earned only $100 in a week – less than you ordinarily might earn – the department would not count $25 as wages. It would deduct $75 from your weekly benefit amount. So for someone who has a weekly benefit amount of $450, they would be paid a reduced amount of $375.
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Questions about getting jobless benefits in California? We have your answers."
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