The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday extended entitlement to unemployment benefits to those dealing with unsafe workplaces, as well as unemployed parents who had to quit their jobs when schools and daycare businesses closed and were unemployed when children returned to class.
More specifically, the Labor Department expanded the conditions under which workers could qualify for unemployment insurance through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA). The order extends eligibility to:
- Employees who have been denied unemployment benefits after refusing to work in unsafe conditions
- School staff and employees affected by school closures due to reduced pay or who are not assured of continued payment
- Any employee whose working hours were reduced or who lost their job as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic
Today’s guidelines open the door to emergency response for workers who have faced difficult, if not impossible, choices between accepting a job in an unsafe workplace to gain a steady source of income and protecting their health and those of their loved ones, ”Patricia Smith, senior adviser to the Secretary of Labor, said in a statement Thursday.
In addition to allowing school staff and workers who feel unsafe to claim unemployment benefits, the new guideline also provides relief for those who have faced childcare and school closures affecting their jobs even after the schools returned in person. .
“This is great news for a cause we’ve seen a lot: parents [who] left work when schools closed, they replaced jobs, and then they were out of work, but the school reopened, “Elizabeth Pancotti, policy director at Employ America tweeted on ThursdayShe noted that if parents had to quit their jobs as a direct result of Covid-19, even if schools reopened, they would be eligible for unemployment benefits.
The new guideline solves this “glaring problem” for parents who had to stop working because their child’s school was closed due to Covid-19 and then had no job to return to when things reopened, says Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and leading expert on unemployment insurance.
The latest extension of eligibility is part of the PUA program, which was set up under the CARES Act aid package adopted by Congress about a year ago. The program specifically targets entrepreneurs, self-employed Americans, handymen, and independent contractors who are out of work or who have significantly fewer hours as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The PUA program is 100% federal funded but administered by each state.
Thursday’s changes to eligibility are retroactive, so workers who were previously denied unemployment can reapply for a PUA and receive benefits dating back to the beginning of their unemployment period. That said, employees who applied for unemployment benefits after December 27, 2020 will not be eligible until weeks after December 6, 2020.
The Labor Department also mandates that states allow workers to select more than one reason for their unemployment based on Covid-19. That way, they can continue to qualify for benefits even if one of the reasons declines.
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