Report by Paula Antolini, April 28, 2020, 4:55PM EDT
(HARTFORD, CT) – Governor Ned Lamont today announced that the Connecticut Department of Labor (CTDOL) has successfully programmed its computer system and begun issuing the first round of weekly federal stimulus payments to filers receiving state unemployment benefits, with the first batch of payments having been issued this past weekend. The additional $600 weekly payment, known as Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, was created as part of the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is retroactive to March 29, 2020 and will be provided through July 25, 2020. For those who already received unemployment benefits for previous weeks – such as April 4, 11, and 18 – the agency will be providing retroactive payments as a lump sum by the end of this week.
Claimants can check their online accounts on the CTDOL website at www.filectui.com and see the deposits were issued over the weekend. Those who receive payments through direct deposit should begin seeing the additional amount appearing in their bank accounts by Tuesday.
The first $600 payments totaled more than $89 million. When combined with nearly $51 million issued in state benefits, the agency provided $140 million in unemployment benefits last weekend.
“Our Department of Labor worked day and night to come up with the technological fixes to ensure benefits were distributed in a timely way to our residents,” Governor Ned Lamont said. “There are hundreds of thousands in our state relying on our Department of Labor to help get them through this crisis, and the state’s loyal and hard-working team never lost sight of that. This is a difficult time for so many, and I appreciate that these new benefits are being distributed.”
“We are pleased to announce that the additional $600 is being added to any benefit issued this past weekend and onward,” Commissioner Westby said. “I want to thank the dedicated and talented staff at the Labor Department, as well as our partners and assisting agencies, for the tireless effort put forth to serve the public. The task was complicated, due to a 40-year-old mainframe using a COBOL operating system. Despite these challenges, we have now processed over 340,000 of the 402,000 claim applications filed since March 13.”
CTDOL continues to work nonstop to implement the remaining two recently established federal stimulus programs:
- Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which provides benefits for self-employed individuals among others, and
- Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), a 13-week extension that allows eligible claimants to collect the additional weeks after exhausting the 26 weeks of state benefits.
The agency expects to begin accepting applications for PUA on April 30 and plans to have PEUC in operation by mid-May. Both programs will be retroactive.
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