Hi, My name is Sarah Hymowitz, I am an attorney with Legal Services of New Jersey.
And today I am going to give you a brief overview of the unemployment programs that are currently
available to unemployed or underemployed workers in New Jersey.
First, regular or traditional unemployment benefits; These benefits are available as
always.
In order to access unemployment benefits, a person must be both eligible and not disqualified
from benefits.
To be eligible for benefits, a claimant must have worked at least 20 weeks during their
base year, earning at least $200 per week, or they must have earned a total of at least
$10,000.00 dollars during their base year.
In order to be not disqualified from benefits, a person has to show that they're
involuntarily unemployed.
So, claimants who voluntarily left their job, without good cause attributable to the work,
will be disqualified from benefits.
Claimants who were terminated from their jobs for misconduct will also be disqualified for
a period of time.
But the issue of non-disqualification from benefits really requires a fact specific analysis,
which we won’t get into today.
For those who are entitled to benefits, so they’re both eligible and not disqualified.
In order to determine their weekly benefit rate the unemployment division will average
their weekly earnings during their base year and claimants will receive 60% of those average
earnings but with a maximum of $713.00 dollars per week.
Partial unemployment benefits are also available to those whose hours have been reduced by
20% or more.
And currently... claimants may receive a maximum of 26 weeks of benefits.
And we will talk about extended benefits later.
In order to actually access benefits, claimants must certify each week that they are able
to work, available for work, and actively seeking work.
But this last requirement of an active job search is currently relaxed due to the pandemic
and the difficulty of going out and searching for a job.
Recently the federal government enacted the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act.
Or CARES Act.
This law provides two trillion dollars to support the federal economy.
It also creates 3 new unemployment programs.
These are the pandemic unemployment compensation program, the pandemic unemployment assistance
program, and the pandemic emergency unemployment compensation program.
The first, the pandemic unemployment assistance program, is the program that allows people
who are not traditionally eligible for unemployment benefits, to access support during this crisis.
So pandemic unemployment assistance benefits are available to workers who are self-employed,
who are independent contractors, who are gig workers, people who couldn’t start a new
job due to the pandemic or people who were just otherwise ineligible for regular unemployment
benefits.
Under this program claimants can receive up to maximum of 39 weeks and the program is
available from the end of January of this year, so retroactive benefits are possible,
to the end of the year.
The weekly benefits rate for pandemic unemployment assistance benefits is a minimum of $231.00
per week and a maximum of $713.00 per week.
Partial unemployment, I’m sorry, partial pandemic unemployment assistance benefits
are also available.
Ok, so in order to access pandemic unemployment assistance benefits, a claimant must show
that they are either unemployed or underemployed, due to some circumstance related to COVID-19.
So they have to be diagnosed themselves with COVID-19, in the process of seeking a diagnosis,
caring for someone in their household who has COVID, caring for a child at home who
is out of school because the school or daycare is closed, People who have been quarantined,
or people who have been advised by a healthcare provider or the government to quarantine,
People who are scheduled to start a new job but couldn’t due to the pandemic, people
who have become the breadwinner of their households because someone has passed away in the home,
someone who has had to quit their job as a direct result of the pandemic.
And this one is a little tricky because it’s actually a very specific analysis.
The federal government in offering some guidance on how to interpret this, this situation where
someone quits their job, as a direct result of COVID-19.
The federal government has said, this is really only for claimants whose decision to leave
the job was a direct result, meaning, for example someone who had the virus might have
recovered but had a medical complication along the way that prevents them from returning
to work.
So we don’t yet know how the New Jersey Department of Labor will interpret this provision
here, having had to quit their job as a direct result because of COVID-19 but the guidance
that we currently have from the federal government tells us that it is a very narrow interpretation.
PUA benefits, are also available to people whose places of work have closed as a direct
result of the pandemic or to people who meet other criteria that may be established by
the Department of Labor.
And the process for applying for a pandemic unemployment assistance benefits is really
the same as applying for unemployment benefits.
Or at least the application is the same.
So, in order to apply for pandemic unemployment assistance benefits, a person would go to
the website, it’s much easier to apply online than by phone.
Go to the Department of Labor's website, fill out an application for unemployment benefits.
The Department of Labor’s website has a PDF which guides claimants in the PUA application
process.
So, the Department of Labor is offering guidance on how to respond to specific questions for
people who are seeking pandemic unemployment assistance benefits, and one of the requirements
for pandemic unemployment assistance is that a claimant not be eligible for regular unemployment
benefits.
So, in order to demonstrate that, a person has to first be denied regular unemployment
benefits before they are considered for pandemic unemployment benefits.
So that is a frustrating but required step in the process.
There is 30 day filing deadline for PUA benefits.
But for those who have a very compelling reasons for not being able to file within that time
um, it’s likely that Department of Labor would find, make a good cause exception to
this request for this strict requirement.
And to determine a person’s weekly benefit rate, under the pandemic unemployment assistance
program, the unemployment division will look at documentation regarding a claimant’s
income during their base year.
So, claimants seeking PUA benefits will have to provide certifications about their income
during their base year.
Possibly tax returns, other tax documents, maybe bank statements, something to show what
a person, usually what a person made during their base year so that the Department of
Labor can determine a weekly benefit rate for them.
Ok, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation Benefits or (PUC benefits) this is the program
that gives an extra $600 to people who are currently receiving unemployment benefits.
Whether it’s the regular unemployment benefits or pandemic unemployment assistance benefits.
So this is a program that’s available not only to people getting regular unemployment
or PUA benefits but partial benefits as well.
So someone who’s getting any money from unemployment right now is going to get that
$600 boost each week.
But this program is only available from the beginning of April until the end of July of
2020.
There is no separate application required, anyone who is getting unemployment or partial
unemployment is going to get these extra payments.
So claimants don’t have to do anything, it’s an automatic payment although its paid
separate from regular unemployment or PUA benefits the first payments were made the
week of April 14 but the program is still being rolled out so not everyone has received
them yet, but they should soon.
Also, this extra $600 won’t affect people’s eligibility for Medicaid or for the children’s
health insurance program.
And for people who have overpayments, so these are claimants who have claimed benefits in
the past and at some point were deemed to have been overpaid, so they owe a refund to
the Department of Labor.
Usually the Department of Labor is able to recoup those overpaid benefits by keeping
a persons weekly benefits that they claim in a subsequent claim.
So, people who have overpayments will have their regular unemployment or PUA benefits
taken to repay the debt but they’ll still get PUC benefits so even people with overpayments
will still be able to receive these $600 payments until the end of July.
and the last program pandemic emergency unemployment compensation benefits
or the PEUC program.
This is the third program that was created by the CARES Act and administered by the Department
of Labor in New Jersey.
So, this program is available from the beginning of April or the week ending April 5, until
the end of the year.
Under this program, the Department of Labor will provide claimants with an extra 13 weeks
of unemployment benefits.
So, in New Jersey the maximum number of weeks that any claimant can claim now is 26 weeks
under the traditional or regular unemployment program with these additional 13 weeks of
benefits it’s a maximum of 39 weeks.
So, people who are collecting either regular unemployment or pandemic unemployment assistance
can now receive up to 39 weeks of benefits.
This program is available to not only people who are close to exhausting their regular
unemployment benefits, but for people who exhausted benefits after July first of last
year 2019.
So, people who claimed all 26 weeks of benefits or the maximum number of weeks they were eligible
for after last July will be eligible for these additional 13 weeks of benefits.
The application process is not yet known because this program is still in the process of being
rolled out by the New Jersey Department of Labor.
If you visit the New Jersey Department of Labor’s website, there is a popup that
says EUC benefits are not yet available it will be soon, they are still creating the
program that will allow these payments to be made.
So, stay on top of the New Jersey Department of Labor’s website to see when those will
be available and you should know also the Department of Labor is required to notify
all claimants who are eligible for these additional benefits so people who exhausted their claims
months ago or are about to, will get a notice saying that they may be able to access these
extra 13 weeks.
So, stay tuned to the department’s website, to the Department of Labor’s website for
additional information on how to access those benefits.
We don’t yet know the details but we are hoping that this program will be rolled out
this week or next.
Ok.
Implementation issues.
It’s no surprise that there has been enormous surge in applications which is overwhelming
the system at the Department of Labor.
We have seen a couple of crashes in the system and we know claimants are frustrated and it’s
very difficult to get through by phone to talk about claims.
It’s also difficult to claim benefits or file applications online.
The department of labor is working day and night to improve the situation.
Hiring more staff, and upgrading all of the technical aspects of the unemployment system.
And it should be improving hour by hour, day by day.
If you run into a problem with your claim and you can’t get through to anyone to discuss
it, the best advise we can offer is to send an email to the department's website describing
the problem that you are having and your attempts to resolve it.
At least that way you will have a documentation of your efforts and if your asked at some
point in the future about why you didn’t claim at a particular week you will have documentation
of your efforts to do so.
And you will be paid retroactively.
Resources if you have questions it’s probably best to first visit the Department of Labor’s
website there is really helpful information, great graphics, lots of helpful frequently
asked questions, and also lots of case scenarios that provide information, not only on unemployment
but on other programs like paid family leave, temporary disability, anything related to
wage and hour, so visit there, see if you can find the answer that you are looking for.
If not,
if you have a case specific question, please contact Legal Services of New Jersey we would
be happy to talk to you, if you are eligible for our services.
You can do that by going to our website at lsnjlaw.org.
We also have a lot of information published there that may help to answer your question
but if not, you can go to that website
to complete an intake and once you do that, a paralegal will call and tell you if you
are eligible for our services and if you are, they will schedule you for a call back with
an attorney and we would be happy to help in any way that we can.
You can also call our statewide hotline at 1-888-LSNJ-LAW