SPOKANE, Wash — Unemployment benefits for workers who otherwise are not covered by regular state unemployment are set to expire on Dec. 26 if Congress does not act to extend them, according to the Washington State Employment Security Department.
The CARES Act funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which helps workers who don’t qualify for regular unemployment.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers and the commissioner of the Employment Security Department sent a letter to Washington’s congressional delegation on Nov. 20 to provide recommendations about ways to reduce the impact on the state’s workers and businesses.
According to the letter, Washington state has paid out over $5.8 billion in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) benefits, over $1.1 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and roughly $410 million in Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) to over a million Washingtonians.
The letter says state workforce agencies must be given enough time and resources to implement any changes, so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of benefits.
Legislators say they support extensions of PUA and PEUC without any lapse with transition periods to implement any changes to the programs or reinstatement of FPUC.
Legislators asked that PUA overpayments be waived.
“It would be unfair to claimants to make them repay overpayments when the cause of the overpayment is inadvertent state error or the byproduct of building a new benefit program during an unprecedented economic crisis with rapidly evolving federal guidance,” the letter says. “Moreover, many individuals claiming PUA are new to claiming unemployment benefits and are prone to making innocent mistakes due to lack of familiarity with the unemployment claims process.”
The letter also says legislators support waiving overpayments related to FEMA’s Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program, which provided unemployment claimants $300 per week over a 6 weeks period in August and September.
Legislators also wrote that they support federal action to remove the requirement to retroactively certify weekly COVID-19 reasons for PUA claims and ensure that individuals who are still eligible are not at risk of having benefits terminated.
“The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) is instructing states to retroactively contact individuals who filed for PUA and have them complete a weekly certification of the COVID-19 related reason for weeks going back to the beginning of the PUA program,” the letter reads. “States are being instructed that a weekly certification must be done now even though neither the CARES Act nor previous USDOL guidance requires such weekly certifications. If the retroactive contact requirement is enforced, millions of recipients will need to be contacted and required to act to retroactively certify PUA eligibility. In many cases it will be difficult to obtain a response – as people move or choose not to reply because of new employment or other reasons – which will result in the creation of unjustified overpayments.”
The letter says Washington entered the pandemic with “one of the strongest and best-financed trust funds in the nation” with roughly $4.7 billion. Legislators believe there is enough money to pay traditional unemployment benefits through 2021 based on the September 2020 economic forecast.
“We continue to encourage Congress to take steps to directly bolster state trust funds given the extraordinary impact of the pandemic on state unemployment systems nationwide, so that states are not forced to increase taxes on employers to address the solvency of trust funds,” the letter says.
Legislators wrote that they would like to see the period for states to take out interest free Title XII loans be extended through 2021 and additional extensions to ease the burden on state trust funds and the employers that finance them.
The letter says another round of at least $1 billion is needed for state staffing, technology, anti-fraud and other costs associated with processing claims for both state and federal programs.
The letter was signed by ESD Commissioner Suzan LeVine, Sena Karen Keiser, Rep. Mike Sells, Sen. Curtis King and Rep. Gina Mosbrucker.
