Jobless Texans should receive benefits sooner
Texans should start to see bolstered unemployment benefits in their bank accounts sooner than they did the last time a stimulus package was passed, according to Texas Workforce Commission officials.
The commission couldn’t immediately provide the number of people who received benefits, but said most of who qualified should have received them. It’s unclear how many people have yet to receive benefits because some people reentered the workforce during the pandemic, said James Bernsen, a spokesperson for the TWC.
For the most part, those who have recently received benefits under the last program do not need to reapply because they are automatically enrolled.
Two classes of workers, however, do need to re
apply: those who received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, which is the catchall for self-employed individuals and gig workers who were traditionally ineligible for unemployment benefits; and those who have worked sometime in the past year.
The Texas Workforce Commission has already begun to send out correspondence to these groups
and should hear from them soon.
When the last stimulus package passed in December, benefits were delayed for some workers. Part of the reason was the commission had to bring back workers whose benefits had expired and are typically purged from the payment system, requiring software to be rewritten.
Also, some of the criteria had changed between the packages that passed last March versus the one approved in December. For
instance, the additional weekly payments were lowered to $300 from $600. Similar delays are not expected because programs haven’t changed, Bernsen said.
“It’s not a new program, it was a continuation of the last one,” he said.
The following programs were extended through the week ending Sep. 4:
• Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which is an extension of traditional state unemployment benefits.
• Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). These are benefits extended to those not normally qualified for unemployment, such as the self-employed and gig workers.
• Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), is the additional $300 for weeks beginning March 14 through the week ending Sep. 4.