Unemployment Compensation Updates

Rep. Leanne Krueger    April 28, 2020 | 11:36 AM

The House Democratic Labor and Industry Committee offered the following updates on unemployment compensation on April 26:

  • Claims stuck due to people using the same address for their business and home was fixed by IT, which addressed 46,000 claims in queue. These claims will likely be denied as individuals probably should have applied for PUA. The Department of Labor and Industry will be providing additional notification to denied individuals.
  • For people having issues not receiving the $600 payments – the payments are made automatically but not at the same time. The most someone might wait was if they file benefits on Friday then must wait for next cycle or about 12-13 days.
  • The Labor and Industry mail room is operating three shifts a day, seven days a week.  Pin numbers continue to be issued. Mail for relief of charges will take a few more days. Mail for various other L&I programs are being processed in a timely fashion.

Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) Program

  • L&I has made about $490 million payments so far under the $600 FPUC.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)

  • The application is functional right now; but the benefit system is still under construction. 
  • Approximately 90,000 successful PUA applications since April 18. 
  • The goal is to have payments going out in early May.
  • Claimants are not currently seeing an accurate determination amount.  As soon as the backend is matched to the frontend of the system, claimants will see what they are eligible for and not the default $195 that is on the dashboard currently.
  • People will need to file weekly continued claims to get payments once the benefit system is operating.
  • L&I is working to figure out PUA log-in issues.
  • The system does allow people to log back in and add new information; however, the department is aware of log-in issues.
  • If a claimant is frozen out of the PUA application and needs to provide additional information on their claim, they have two options:

1) Wait until the glitch is fixed and add the information then – PUA claims are not being processed yet anyway; or

2) Send a detailed email explaining the situation and attaching the documents to ucpua@pa.gov if they want to do something right away.

  • Applicants need to support their wages with evidence. At some point, UC will be audited.
  • Some claimants have multiple sources of income. The PUA application asks for total quarterly income.  Claimants should add up their sources of income. Claimants do not need to enter each source of income separately.
  • You will not need a PIN number for PUA, instead, you will use the username and password you created during the application.
  • You can file weekly or biweekly claims, once the system is set-up
  • You will be able to upload documentation later if you were not able to upload in the application or have additional evidence.
  • The system is also showing every applicant that they have 3 “issues” regardless of what you submitted with the application.
  • If you are not able to sign into the system now, that is because of glitches with the website, not because you did something wrong.
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