Gov. Cooper lifts some unemployment benefit restrictions to make it easier to qualify
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is lifting several restrictions on state unemployment benefits to make it easier for people to qualify and to reduce the cost to businesses, he said Tuesday.
The news comes on the heels of Cooper’s announcement that, starting Tuesday at 5 p.m., he would be ordering bar and restaurant closures statewide — except for takeout and delivery.
“I recognize that this decision will cost people their jobs,” Cooper said. “So this order also brings some relief.”
One of the biggest changes is that under Cooper’s new order, people who don’t entirely lose their jobs due to coronavirus closures but do see their hours cut will in some cases be able to qualify for unemployment benefits.
Other changes Cooper announced in his Tuesday afternoon press conference include lifting the waiting period to apply, as well as lifting the usual requirement that people have to be actively searching for a new job in order to continue receiving benefits.
That’s because he hopes many bars and restaurants are soon able to reopen, and he doesn’t want them to find out that all their former employees are gone.
“I know that many employers will want to hire their employees back when this pandemic subsides,” Cooper said.
On the business side, Cooper said that while businesses are typically required to help pay for their former workers’ unemployment benefits, that rule now won’t apply in cases related to coronavirus.
North Carolina has among the nation’s smallest benefits for unemployed people, after the Republican-led legislature cut benefits in 2013 to address a deficit following the Great Recession, the News & Observer has previously reported. And while Cooper’s order Tuesday doesn’t appear to directly increase the weekly amounts that people can receive, it will make it easier for people to qualify for benefits, and to receive the benefits for as long as possible.
As of late 2019, records show, the average North Carolinian on unemployment got just under $2,300, spread out over two months. The state ranks in the bottom 10 nationally in terms of both its average weekly payments and how many weeks people receive the payments.
However, the cuts have turned what had been a $2 billion deficit into what’s now a nearly $4 billion surplus. On Tuesday, N.C. Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican from Rockingham County, said times like these are exactly why it’s important to have a large surplus.
“Reforms put in place years ago helped build that large balance to allow the state to adjust its benefits program in response to an economic downturn,” Berger said in a press release.
And while there’s still uncertainty over whether or how the federal government might respond with unemployment changes of its own, Berger said, “we have a multibillion surplus for times like this.”
N.C. Sen. Wiley Nickel of Cary is the only Democrat on the legislature’s joint committee that oversees unemployment insurance. In an interview Tuesday he said he has previously been pushing to increase both the state’s weekly benefits and the number of weeks people can qualify for.
He thinks there’s a chance that coronavirus and the economic worries it’s causing could finally create bipartisan backing for such a proposal, adding: “Economists all agree that when you have a recession coming on, the best thing you can do is to get money into the hands of workers.”
But regardless of whether lawmakers vote on raising the benefits, Nickel said Cooper’s order lifting some of the rules will have an immediate effect anyway.
Right now, Nickel said, only about 10% of the people who apply for unemployment benefits in North Carolina are approved — “only one state is worse than us” in that regard, he added. But he said the changes Cooper made Tuesday should double or even triple that rate of approval.
How to apply
To apply for unemployment, people will need to go to the N.C. Department of Commerce’s website to get more information on what they’ll need to prove their claim — and what they’ll need to do to continue being eligible if they do initially qualify.
“Not everyone who applies for unemployment benefits will qualify,” the N.C. Department of Commerce says on its website. “Certain conditions must be met in order to meet initial eligibility requirements and to remain eligible to receive benefits.”
Applying for unemployment benefits requires several key pieces of information, including your Social Security number, a working email address, a detailed work history from the last two years, details about any severance pay you might receive and more.
The full list of what people need to apply, and how to qualify, can be found online here.
People who want to apply for unemployment benefits can call 888-737-0259 or go online to www.des.nc.gov. The online application site is always available, but the phone line is only open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays.
People who aren’t able to use either the phone line or the website can also go in person to one of the state’s NC Works Career Center offices.
Not all NC Works offices are open during all regular business hours even under normal circumstances, however. And a few have closed down entirely, due to the coronavirus. Others are operating on limited hours or requiring people to make appointments before dropping in.
To find an office near you, go to the “Find a center” page on the www.ncworks.gov website.
However, that list of offices has not been recently updated to include which ones are closed or operating under new hours due to coronavirus. To check if your local office is one of those, go to the website’s “Center closures” page.
How North Carolina compares
The News & Observer previously reported that in 2016, North Carolina had the nation’s lowest weekly payouts ($247, on average) and also the second-lowest amount of time that people were eligible to be paid (9.3 weeks, on average). That meant the average unemployed person received a total of $2,297.10 then.
Benefits now are even lower.
As of late 2019, records show, average weekly payments here have risen from their 2016 levels (to $264 per week) but the amount of time people received them fell (to 8.6 weeks, on average). That means the typical unemployed person would now receive a total of $2,270.40 — although that could soon change, depending on what Cooper announces.
Around the country, the states in the middle of the national rankings pay their unemployed residents an average of $348 a week, and let them receive 14 weeks worth of payments. A person in those circumstances would get $4,872. That’s more than double what the average North Carolinian receives
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Domecast politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Megaphone, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 11:10 AM.
