SALT LAKE CITY — The $900 billion economic relief package that President Donald Trump signed at the beginning of the week will deliver vital aid to millions of struggling households and businesses, but the nearly one-week delay in signing the bill means that it will take that much longer for the financial support to arrive.
“We are dedicated to ensuring these critical benefits are made available as quickly as possible to those who are eligible,” said Bethany Hyatt, public information officer with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
The agency does not have a set timeline for processing the distribution of new funding from the new stimulus package, as administrators await official guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor. Upon receiving that information, officials will be able to better evaluate the timelines to implementation.
“Initial review from the (Labor Department) believes there will not be a lapse in benefits with the delayed signing of the relief bill. Any delays resulting from the slowed guidance and implementation will be paid retroactively for eligible weeks,” she said. “It is important to note that claimants should continue to file their weekly continued claim and processing is still 21 to 30 days for new claims. Our department will contact the claimant if there are issues with the claim.”
The state Department of Workforce Services did not release data over the holidays, but in its pre-Christmas report noted more than 30,000 Utahns were seeking help in first-time and continuing claims. Nine months after the initial stages of the pandemic, Utah continues to see about four times more weekly claims than it did during 2019.
The package that Trump signed on Sunday will extend two unemployment benefit programs providing aid to 14 million people that expired last week. It will also provide small business loans and up to $600 in cash payments to most individuals — some of which have already been received. In addition, it extends a moratorium on evictions for one month.
The legislation extends the two federal jobless aid programs until mid-March and adds a $300 supplemental weekly payment. But because Trump signed the bill on Sunday, a day after the two programs lapsed, that could cost the unemployed a week of benefits, with payments not restarting until next week, an analyst told The Associated Press.
The date was really unfortunate,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a workers’ advocacy group. “Now there’s some question as to when this gets paid out.”
It is possible that the Labor Department will interpret the law to allow payments for the week ending Jan. 2, Evermore said. But if the bill had been signed Saturday, payments clearly could have restarted this week.
And it will likely take two to three weeks for states to update their computer systems to resume the aid programs and pay out the extra $300, Evermore said.
Months from now, economists say, the widespread distribution and use of vaccines could potentially unleash a robust economic rebound as the virus is quashed, businesses reopen, hiring picks up and consumers spend freely again. Yet the aid likely won’t last long enough to support struggling small businesses.
“Some aid is better than no aid,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s positive. But it’s likely going to be insufficient to bridge the gap from today until late spring or early summer when the health situation fully improves.”
Meanwhile, the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits last week fell by 19,000 to 787,000, still a historically high level. the Labor Department reported Thursday.
While at the lowest level in four weeks, the figures are nearly four times higher than last year at this time before the coronavirus struck. Employers continue to cut jobs as rising infections keep many people at home and state and local governments re-impose tighter restrictions on businesses and public activities.
Jobless claims were running around 225,000 per week before the pandemic struck with force last March when weekly jobless claims surged to 6.9 million and sent U.S. economy into a deep recession.
The total number of people receiving traditional unemployment benefits fell by 103,000 to 5.2 million for the week ending Dec. 19. That’s still far greater than the 1.7 million a year ago when the unemployment rate was hovering around a half-century low of 3.9%.
Unemployment claims peaked in May at 25.9 million.
The four-week average for claims, which smooths out weekly variations, rose last week to 836,750, an increase of 17,750 from the previous week. Economists believe that the holidays, in addition to broad confusion over the status of a COVID-19 relief package, suppressed applications for benefits last week, so the numbers may be worse than they appear.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/3hxeg0A
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