Unemployment insurance benefits begin; applications available for other pandemic assistance

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Staff Reports

Hoosiers who are receiving regular unemployment insurance benefits have begun seeing the additional $600 weekly payment from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program.

The vast majority of claimants should have seen payments being made last week, according to a news release from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Vouchers must be filed each week in order to continue to receive benefits. It is recommended to file the vouchers on a Tuesday or after during the week, taking the high stress off of the historic traffic now hitting the department’s Uplink online system.

The CARES Act FPUC provides individuals with an additional $600 weekly benefit. FPUC is payable effective March 29 for any week of unemployment until July 31. The Department of Workforce Development will pay this benefit retroactively to March 29. The $600 FPUC benefit is taxable and subject to child support withholding.

“We are pleased that we were able to start getting these payments to out-of-work Hoosiers ahead of our goal of April 20,” DWD Commissioner Fred Payne said. “This federal assistance will further help those individuals who are not working due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

To put these payments into perspective, as the FPUC payments were starting to be added April 17 through 19, $276 million in payments were made over the three-day period. In all of 2019, $230 million was paid out through the Indiana unemployment insurance assistance program.

It typically takes up to 21 days for first-time claims to be paid if there are no issues on the claim. A claimant can view their Uplink Claimant Homepage to check for issues on their claim.

If there is an issue, a DWD claims investigator will be assigned to analyze the claim. DWD is advising claimants with issues on their claims to not contact the call center to check on the status of their claims, as that only adds to the already large volume of calls the center is experiencing.

Additionally, the CARES Act Pandemic Unemployment Assistance creates a temporary federal unemployment insurance program for individuals not otherwise eligible for unemployment insurance benefits, including the self-employed, independent contractors, gig economy workers, those seeking part-time employment and individuals lacking sufficient work history but who would be able to work and looking for work were it not due to COVID-19.

PUA is not payable to individuals who have the ability to telework with pay or who are receiving paid sick leave or other paid leave benefits.

The new federal program requires an entire new system to be designed and built from the ground up. DWD is integrating the new system into Uplink so these benefits can be provided as quickly and efficiently as possible to impacted Hoosiers.

PUA applications are available in Uplink to those who have already applied for and been denied regular unemployment insurance benefits. PUA applications will be available to others as soon as they apply for and are denied regular unemployment insurance. DWD will be able to begin making PUA payments in May.

The CARES Act also provides the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which is an additional 13 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits once benefits are exhausted for traditional claimants. This program is not yet available. Once available, eligible claimants will access weekly vouchers through the Uplink system.

Since Gov. Eric Holcomb directed all bars and restaurants to close March 16, more than 450,000 Hoosiers have successfully filed for unemployment. Further, roughly 432,000 unemployment insurance claims have been paid for the two-week period of April 1 through 14, and that number continues to rise and will do so at a greater pace with the addition of the CARES Act additional benefits.

A record 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the four weeks through April 11. With so many individuals across the country out of work, states are seeing an increase in attempts to defraud their unemployment systems.

Anyone purposely or intentionally providing false information, misrepresenting the truth or failing to provide full information in making a selection or completing this claim for benefits is committing fraud.

If anyone is found to have committed fraud, they will be ineligible for any benefits, and DWD will institute collections proceedings against them to recover any benefits obtained through fraud. They also may be subject to federal and state criminal prosecution.

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The Indiana department of Workforce Development has released a new set of simple how-to videos to assist the user experience for unemployment claimants. The new video collection can be at on.in.gov/uivids.

The most up-to-date information on the new unemployment insurance programs can be found at unemployment.in.gov.

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