Extra jobless benefits expected to start Sunday
Newsom says California workers to start receiving additional $600
California workers who have lost their jobs amid coronavirus-linked shutdowns will receive $600 in extra unemployment benefits starting on Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.
“The state will begin implementing new federal benefit payments of $600 on top of the weekly benefit received by California workers starting this Sunday,” the governor’s office said Thursday in a release.
The governor’s office and the state Employment Development Department didn’t immediately disclose when the payments would be received by individual workers.
The $600 in additional unemployment benefits was made possible by the federal CARES act signed into law recently by President Donald Trump.
“Many Californians are feeling the effects of this pandemic, and this added benefit is very important to our workers so they have needed resources during this difficult time,” Gov. Newsom said in the release.
The extra jobless payment would be in addition to whatever a California worker would normally get from the state’s unemployment program.
“A worker who receives a maximum weekly benefit payment of $450 here in California would collect an additional $600 on top of that,” Loree Levy, a spokesperson for the state’s Employ
ment Development Department said in a recent email to this news organization.
That means an unemployed worker could receive as much as $1,050 a week when the largest state EDD benefits are combined with the enhanced federal payments.
The average state jobless payment in California, as of February, was $340 a week, according to Levy. That would translate to a theoretical average weekly jobless benefit of $940, including the enhanced federal payment.
The additional $600 is slated to last four months, government officials said.
Business owners, selfemployed
people, independent contractors, those who have a limited work history, and others who normally might not be eligible for regular state unemployment benefits are in line to get the additional $600 in federally financed benefits.
People who became unemployed on or after Feb. 2 of this year, or anyone who loses their job through Dec. 31 of this year, can receive up to 39 weeks of state unemployment insurance, according to a post on the EDD web site.
The EDD is calling the program “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.”
The $600 in the additional federally financed payments would be applied to people who are out of work anytime from late March through the end of
July, according to the EDD.
“Only the weeks of a claim between March 29 and July 31 are eligible for the extra $600 payments,” the EDD stated.
Numerous California companies, including several in the Bay Area and Monterey County, have issued official layoff or furlough notices on or before March 25. The companies frequently cited business shutdowns imposed by the state government and local agencies.
The additional $600 in federally funded jobless benefits could be arriving just in time.
In the last three weeks in California, 2.17 million residents of the Golden State have filed for benefits, suggesting that one out of every nine workers in the state has recently lost their job.
“I want to thank both our federal partners, as well as everyone in our (state) Labor Agency and the staff in the Employment Development Department, who are working around the clock to ensure California workers have the resources they need to get through this difficult time,” Gov. Newsom said.
That around-the-clock work also includes this weekend, the EDD stated.
“Hundreds of EDD staff have volunteered to work on the Easter holiday to ensure these first $600 extra payments are issued” quickly to California residents with a recent unemployment insurance claim, the EDD stated in an email sent to this news organization.