Federal Unemployment Coming To 38K More In CT

CONNECTICUT — Around 38,000 Connecticut residents will get enhanced retroactive federal unemployment benefits just in time for the holidays.

Gov. Ned Lamont signed an executive order that will retroactively increase state unemployment benefits for the six weeks between July 26 and Sept. 5 for those who qualified for less than $100 in weekly benefits.

His executive order will bring those people up to $100 weekly, which will allow them to retroactively qualify for up to a $300 weekly benefit, or $1,800 total from the federal government. People will have to certify that their unemployment was caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The move will cost Connecticut around $7.5 million, but will bring in another $55 million in federal benefits to Connecticut residents, said state Department of Labor Commissioner Kurt Westby.

The average increase during that time period will be $43 weekly from the state, Westby said.

The change will mean more help for some Connecticut families during the holidays, Lamont said.

“They are often single parents, single moms maybe working two or three jobs in and around the minimum wage,” Lamont said during a news conference. “She loses one or two of those extra jobs, she is now down to less than $100 a week, and she was frozen out of any unemployment support and that was wrong.”

More information will go out electronically Saturday and should arrive in the mail by the middle of next week said DOL Deputy Commissioner Dante Bartolomeo. Benefits should be paid within a week for those certify their unemployment as pandemic-related.

Around 160,000 Connecticut residents already received the enhanced federal benefit during the six-week period.

The average weekly unemployment benefit in Connecticut has fluctuated during the pandemic. It currently is around $270,

Unemployment funds

Connecticut has borrowed around $419 million from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits so far, Westby said. DOL will ask for another $250 million loan from the federal government.

The state is paying zero interest on the money through the end of this year. Lamont is advocating for the federal government to turn the loans into grants for states across the country.

Connecticut businesses would bear the costs of paying back the loans if the federal government doesn’t offer some kind of relief, Lamont said.

Connecticut’s official October unemployment rate is 6.1 percent, but DOL estimates that the real unemployment rate is closer to 11 percent; that’s a drop from 7.8 percent and 12-13 percent respectively in September.

Connecticut also offers a shared work program where employers can reduce employee hours instead of a full layoff. The state then pays a partial benefit to those employees. Employers can apply to the program if they plan to reduce an employees hours by 10 to 60 percent.

The shared work program is reimbursed fully by the federal government. Around 30,000 people are already on it and the number continues to grow, Westby said.

“I believe the shared worked program has mitigated layoffs in the state of Connecticut, without a doubt,” Westby said.