Tenn. approved for final two $300 weekly payments
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved Tennessee’s application for grant funds for the final two weeks of $300 lost wages assistance payments for eligible unemployed Tennesseans.
Jobless individuals who meet the program requirements will receive two $300 retroactive payments for the weeks ending Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development announced on its Facebook page Wednesday.
These payments will be the last of the $300 weekly federal grant payments Tennesseans will receive as part of the Lost Wages Assistance program. In total, eligible Tennesseans will receive up to six weeks of the $300 weekly payments for weeks ending Aug. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 and Sept. 5 (depending on eligibility for each week) before the $44 billion in federal emergency funds allotted for the grants run dry.
The Department of Labor will begin processing and distributing the final grant payments once it receives the funds from FEMA. Eligible Tennesseans should begin to receive the money the following week, the department stated.
The Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program set aside $44 billion in FEMA funds to assist eligible unemployed Americans after the $600 weekly supplemental unemployment benefits authorized by the CARES Act terminated in July. The LWA program was slated to terminate on Dec. 26, but because it was fueled by a finite amount of federal grant funds, state leaders cautioned that the program would end once the funds were exhausted.
Tennessee’s department of labor announced Sept. 10 that FEMA reported the funding for the program would stop after the week ending Sept. 5.
Who is eligible to receive these funds?
For those who are eligible for the extra benefits, the difference is substantial. Since the federal $600 per week unemployment supplement authorized by the CARES Act terminated in July, unemployed Tennesseans have received the state’s usual unemployment benefits, which are capped at $275 per week.
The grant program provides an extra $400 in weekly benefits, but $100 of that amount must be contributed by the state. Each state can choose whether to match the $100 using additional funds or count the unemployment benefits paid through the state unemployment system for the match. Tennessee chose the latter.
Not all unemployed Tennesseans are eligible for the grant funds, due to LWA program requirements.
To be eligible for the $300 weekly benefit, unemployed Tennesseans must be out of work due to COVID-19 and qualify for a weekly minimum of $100 in state unemployment benefits from one of the following:
h Tennessee Unemployment Compensation
h Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
h Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation h Extended Benefits payments Unemployed Tennesseans who receive a message instructing them to self-attest that they are out of work due to COVID-19 must do so before their $300 weekly Lost Wages Assistance payments can be released to them, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
How does Tennessee issue payments?
Unemployed individuals will only receive $300 per week for the weeks that they are eligible and have completed their weekly certification, meaning that individuals who were eligible for only two of the first three weeks of August would receive $600 instead of $900, for example. The state will automatically issue payments to eligible individuals.
This means the maximum amount eligible Tennesseans can receive each week is $575 (not including federal tax withholding) — a maximum of $275 under state benefits plus the $300 federal supplement.
Payments can coincide with regular unemployment benefit payments if the state receives funding from FEMA at the beginning of the week. If funding is granted at the end of the week, the extra benefit payments may be made separately. Payments that are separate from weekly benefits will not appear on the payment summary on eligible individuals’ dashboards.
People who were eligible for each of the first three weeks of August should receive one retroactive payment in a lump sum totaling $900 (without federal tax withholding), department spokesman Chris Cannon stated. Those who receive less may not have been eligible for all three weeks.
Cassandra Stephenson is a business reporter at The Tennessean. Reach Cassandra at ckstephenson@tennessean.com.