State says 90% of jobless getting benefits

Despite complaints from some jobless workers that they have yet to receive state unemployment benefits after months of waiting, Pennsylvania officials on Monday said 90% of the claims for benefits have been paid.

Most of the remaining 10% of claims filed since March 15 have not been paid because the jobless workers were not eligible for the state benefits or their claims had “issues,” which the department had to investigate, said Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak.

A worker might be ineligible for benefits because they quit their job, they received severance pay that increased their earnings for a period, they worked in another state when they were laid off or there may be questions about the worker’s citizenship, said Susan Dickinson, director of the state’s unemployment compensation benefit policy. In some instances, the department still is receiving claims from workers who have been notified that they are ineligible for benefits, Dickinson said.

“They may be eligible down the road,” Dickinson noted.

Eligibility issues are investigated on a case-by-case basis, Dickinson has said.

“There are hundred of workers who have not got their benefits,” since losing their job at the beginning of the covid-19 shutdowns, said Barney Oursler, director of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee in Homestead.

For the week ending July 4, there were 661,600 claims being filed by jobless workers on a continual basis, but only 47,700 initial claims, according to state data.

The state distributed $26.3 billion in state and federal benefits to eligible jobless workers since March 14, of which $10.8 billion was in regular unemployment compensation, Oleksiak said.

The big change for workers still unemployed at the end of the month is that they will not be able to file for the $600 weekly checks through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program after July 25. The federal government has not extended or replaced that program, which provided $12.1 billion since early April, Oleksiak said.

Some unemployed workers will be eligible for extended jobless benefits and the state is processing those claims, Dickinson said. The number of weeks they will receive those benefits is one-half of the time the worker got benefits through the regular unemployment compensation program.