State Labor Department Begins Processing Self-Employed Claims

CONNECTICUT —The red button is up.

For those self-employed or gig workers hoping to get the federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, and who needed to first file for state benefits, the second step, the “red button” is now up on the state Department of Labor website and claims are being processed.

Labor officials said Thursday that they expect “north” of around 40,000 to apply for the federal benefit that ranges from $198 a week to $649 a week. Once approved, benefits would be retroactive from Feb. 2, if they lost their work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

After being approved, if the unemployed worker uses bank direct deposit, they can expect a first payment within a week. For those opting for benefits to be loaded onto a debit card, that can take anywhere from 10 day to three weeks, officials said in a media update.

Officials said that 38,000 self-employed and other eligible workers have already begun the process.

To date, the state labor department has paid more than $1 billion in benefits – $433 million in state benefits and $607 million in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation since the COVID-19 pandemic began. More than 480,000 claim applications have been received with 431,000 processed. Officials said they are working to get the remaining applications done some of which may have been stalled due to "common errors" from incorrect social security numbers, name misspellings or hyphenated names and the like. Officials said a FAQ line would be set up for general questions though did not provide details on the timing at the media briefing.

State labor officials say that the “complexity of the system” stalled early on, work but is now on target and meeting goals.

On March 27, 2020, the the CARES Act was signed into law which includes the Relief for Workers Affected by Coronavirus Act and created the new temporary federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Covered individuals include self-employed, those seeking part-time employment, individuals lacking sufficient work history, and those who otherwise do not qualify for regular unemployment compensation. In general, PUA provides up to 39 weeks of benefits to qualifying individuals who are otherwise able to work and available for work within the meaning of applicable state UC law, except that they are unemployed, partially unemployed, or unable or unavailable to work due to COVID-19 related reasons.