Biden expands eligibility for jobless benefits

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration expanded eligibility for unemployment insurance Thursday to include workers who refused job offers at worksites they deemed unsafe, making good on a pledge to reduce the pressure on people who say they have been forced to choose between staying healthy and getting a paycheck.

The Labor Department made the shift Thursday in response to an executive order from President Joe Biden last month, broadening the eligibility of pandemic unemployment insurance (PUI) to include workers whose benefits were denied because they refused to return to workplaces that were not in compliance with coronavirus health and safety standards.

The change in eligibility goes into effect immediately, but officials cautioned that it could take at least a month for claims to be approved, if not longer, partly because of significant delays that have plagued state unemployment agencies.

Workers who are found to be eligible will be able to receive payments for unemployment claims dating to the beginning of the pandemic, when the PUI program was created, as well as the supplemental $600-a-week bonus that the federal government has approved through the end of July.

The change in exemptions does not appear to help people who quit work in the past year, many presumably because they felt unsafe — another category of unemployed workers who have been denied benefits, despite some limited eligibility for PUI.

“Workers have been in this situation where they have had to choose between accepting work that puts them at risk of COVID-19 exposure or refusing such work and then being denied unemployment benefits,” said Suzan LeVine, principal deputy assistant secretary for employment and training. “The action that we’re taking today helps alleviate that decision, to alleviate that tension. … We know that the losses have fallen hardest on communities of color. And if we intend to build back better, we need an unemployment system that covers as many workers who have historically struggled to access benefits.”

Labor Department officials said they did not have an estimate for how many people would be newly eligible for unemployment insurance under the updated guidelines. The guidelines will also expand eligibility for some workers who have lost hours at work, such as at restaurants, but have not been eligible for unemployment insurance because of technicalities, such as not making enough in wages to qualify for unemployment insurance.

For people to qualify, they will be required to attest, under the threat of perjury, that their workplace was not in compliance with either local, state or national standards about the coronavirus, over rules such as social distancing, disinfecting and mask-wearing, the Labor Department said.

The provision seems targeted to the roughly 37,000 people who were denied unemployment insurance after being laid off and declining to return to work during the pandemic last year — about four times the level from 2019.

It will have little effect on the 1.23 million people who have been denied unemployment insurance after voluntarily quitting work, though it is not known how many of those later qualified for PUI.

LeVine said the Labor Department will be able to track how many people take advantage of the new eligibility, to gauge the measure’s success.