Californians whose unemployment benefits lapsed late last year before a federal cutoff now must wait until March before they can even apply to have them extended, state officials told lawmakers Friday.
Even though the federal government extended the benefits on Dec. 27, just one day after they expired, California’s Employment Development Department said that a programming issue prevented it from reinstating them immediately for people whose benefits had run out before Dec. 26. It will send emails, texts and mail next week to notify affected people that they need to certify for benefits starting March 7.
“I’m just appalled,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park. “A lot of people will just get a letter out of the blue saying, ‘We can’t process you until March 7.’ Californians rely on benefits for food and shelter, and now this group will have to wait (at least) two and a half months.”
The revelation is the latest in a string of missteps at EDD, which has struggled to pay claims to an unprecedented surge of people made jobless during the pandemic, while losing at least $11 billion and possibly up to $30 billion to fraudsters. On Thursday state lawmakers proposed a raft of bills to reform the troubled agency.
December was also when EDD froze 1.4 million accounts to guard against fraud, an action that swept up many legitimate claimants. It has been notifying those with frozen accounts in batches over time that they need to go online to verify their identities. Many people whose benefits stopped in December may have thought they were part of the fraud-related freeze, instead of the newly revealed issue with lapsed federal money.
“The road block to getting money to massive amounts of people who need it desperately is the same old problem — dinosaur technology,” said Assembly Member Jim Patterson, R-Fresno.
People affected by the latest revelations were getting unemployment under two programs created under the federal Cares Act. Many were receiving a benefit created under the act called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which covered self-employed people normally ineligible for unemployment insurance. Others were receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides up to 13 weeks of additional federal benefits to laid-off employees who have used up their regular state jobless benefits. State unemployment benefits end after 36 weeks in California.
EDD detailed the issues in a Friday call with lawmakers, as well as in an email to lawmakers reviewed by The Chronicle. It sent out a news release late Friday discussing the December extension of benefits that did not acknowledge the lengthy delay.
“We’re all so exhausted by the deluge of bad news from EDD, and this Friday night news adds insult to injury,” said Assembly Member David Chiu, D-San Francisco. “I’m…
Go to the news source: New California EDD snag could leave some without benefits for 2.5 months
