State, federal delays prevented delivery of $17.6B in jobless benefits: study

Almost $18 billion in unemployment aid was not distributed last month due to delays at the state and federal level, including former President Trump’s decision to wait a week to sign a massive coronavirus relief measure, according to a new study by a left-leaning group.

An analysis published Tuesday by The Century Foundation determined that a combination of factors at various levels of government has prevented crucial aid from being delivered to jobless Americans. Part of that was due to inaction by Trump, the study said.

After months of negotiations, Congress passed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill on Dec. 21, just days before emergency unemployment programs were set to lapse. They unexpectedly expired when Trump decided to wait a week to sign the measure, which was tied to a year-end government funding bill.

While the Labor Department moved furiously to ensure that states could continue the benefits despite the lapse, the Century Foundation’s analysis found extensive state-level delays in resuming benefits, as well as implementing new ones.

“One month after the law’s enactment, nearly a quarter of the states have not resumed paying out federal pandemic aid,” co-authors Ellie Kaverman and Andrew Stettner wrote.

“Moreover, an additional twelve states took three weeks or more to start up the payment of PUA, and fifteen states needed three weeks or more to reup PEUC,” they added, referring to programs providing emergency benefits to the self-employed and those whose regular state-level benefits had already lapsed.

The delayed benefits, they said, amount to 38 percent of what workers should have received according to the measure passed by Congress.

As much as half of the lost benefits were unrelated to Trump’s belated signing of the bill, the study said. States with outdated unemployment systems built in obsolete computer languages have labored to implement seemingly simple changes to payouts, namely the $300 federally funded addition to all weekly benefits.

Those delays would likely have taken place regardless of when Trump signed the bill.

Some of the $17.6 billion in benefits will eventually be paid out retroactively, but other amounts could simply expire when the programs lapse in mid-March. Stettner noted that even brief delays could have serious consequences for struggling families trying to pay rent and buy food.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal includes funds for states to modernize their systems to create more flexibility.

But labor force experts are already raising concerns over next month’s unemployment cliff.

The emergency programs were only extended until mid-March, and some say that any action after mid-February will lead to further lapses in benefit payouts.