Governor requests loans to pay for claims in state
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday requested access to interest-free federal loans to help Texas pay unemployment claims.
The funds, known as Title XII funds, allows states to receive advances from the federal government to continue to cover unemployment benefits without disruption.
Texas has less than six months of reserves to pay unemployment insurance at recession-level rates, according to U.S. Department of Labor data from the second quarter of 2019, the most recent available. That’s well below the federally recommended level of one year, and the seventh-lowest reserve level among states.
The governor’s office said that the Texas Workforce Commission has issued bonds in the past to pay off the loans and that the agency has never missed making a payment to an eligible claimant.
More than 150,000 Texans filed for unemployment benefits last week, state officials said, in a surge that is overwhelming the state’s website and call centers and leaving hundreds of thousands of other jobless workers unable to get past busy signals to file their claims. Last week’s claims were 10 times higher than those filed during the same week last year.
Nationally, a record 3.3 million people filed firsttime claims for unemployment, nearly five times the previous record of just under 700,000 set in 1982.
“The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is committed to ensuring all Texans who are eligible receive unemployment funds,” said Bryan Daniel, chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, in a statement. “This approach, which has served Texas well during hurricane recovery and the recession of 2008, should do so again.”