NC nears 500,000 unemployment claims as it promises fixes to application process
North Carolina officials have approved nearly $30 million worth of unemployment benefits for people who lost their jobs due to coronavirus.
And even more money is on the way as federal benefits should soon kick in, too.
With an average of 21,000 people filing for unemployment every day in the three weeks since coronavirus-related closures began, North Carolina is on track to surpass 500,000 jobless claims by the end of this week.
Congress and President Donald Trump recently approved a stimulus package that — in addition to the $1,200 checks most adults will get — also included expanded unemployment benefits for people out of work. Those unemployment benefits will be $600 a week, for up to four months.
There are three basic ways people can receive those federal benefits, which are known by different acronyms. The money will go to:
▪ People who are already receiving state unemployment benefits (PUC).
▪ People who did receive state benefits but exhausted those benefits (PEUC).
▪ Some people who don’t qualify for state benefits because they were self-employed, worked part-time or fit into other categories (PUA).
Lockhart Taylor leads North Carolina’s unemployment office. He told a legislative committee Tuesday his office has been getting an average of 21,000 new claims per day over the past three weeks. That’s the period in which Gov. Roy Cooper has issued several orders restricting business and travel in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus.
So far, Taylor said, 110,000 people’s claims have been approved and $28.6 million has been paid out.
And since the federal benefits of $600 a week are more than double the state’s average weekly payments, there should be tens of millions more dollars pouring into North Carolina once the federal benefits start getting processed.
For at least some people, that should start happening within a matter of days.
The PUC and PEUC payments should be relatively easy to handle, Taylor said. But the PUA program “is not going to be as easy.”
No matter when the federal money starts arriving in people’s accounts, Taylor reassured people who have already started receiving state benefits that they will be paid the federal benefits retroactively, once those begin.
People who will get the federal unemployment benefits through the PUC and PEUC programs have already been vetted and qualified by state officials, making those claims easier to process. But people seeking benefits through the PUA program will have to go through a separate application process, Taylor said.
Qualifying for PUA benefits
The PUA money is aimed at people in the gig economy, freelancers, independent contractors and other such self-employed people, as well as others who don’t qualify for state benefits.
“I’m getting a lot of questions from independent contractors,” said Rep. Chris Humphrey, a Republican who represents parts of Eastern North Carolina around Kinston and Greenville.
Taylor said he couldn’t yet promise lawmakers exactly when the state might be in a position to start approving people for those PUA benefits, but “I’d really like it up and running in two weeks.”
The reason for the wait and the uncertainty, Taylor said, is the “tremendous amount” of paperwork needed to verify that self-employed people applying for unemployment are telling the truth about their job losses, their incomes, or even that their businesses are legitimate.
And although Congress approved the PUA benefits two weeks ago, the federal government didn’t publish the actual rules for the program until Sunday. Taylor said state unemployment officials spent Monday trying to figure out all the numerous rules and requirements, and will next try to figure out how to best put the new system into place.
Politico reported Monday that those rules have raised the ire of some Democratic politicians and groups for excluding too many people.
Solving problems with filing a claim
In the meantime, that program will mean extra work for the state unemployment office, which has already been swamped with calls from people trying to apply for state benefits. On one recent day, Taylor said, the office fielded more than a quarter of a million phone calls.
He acknowledged the complaints that have been widely reported, about people calling in and being hung up on due to the high number of calls already queued up in front of them.
Taylor told lawmakers the office has recently changed the message that callers in that scenario will hear. It will provide people with instructions about how to go online to des.nc.gov, to apply or find basic information, and will hopefully cut down on the call volume.
He also said the agency has changed the unemployment website to stop automatically locking people out after entering the wrong password too many times. That had been the source of much frustration — and many phone calls — but now people can keep trying passwords instead of having to call the office to get someone to reset their password for them.
The unemployment office has also created dozens of new jobs for people to help answer calls, Taylor said, in addition to contracting with a private call center and taking some call center workers from other parts of state government.
The unemployment office is also working on a FAQ for the top problems people have been having, Taylor said, which should hopefully help cut down on the number of calls and help people get their claim submitted faster.
“We’re trying to get that system better, and that has certainly been very frustrating on our behalf,” he said.
Republican Rep. Jason Saine of Lincoln County, who is one of the co-chairs of the committee Taylor was speaking to Tuesday, told him he has the legislature’s support.
“We understand the pressures that you’re under,” Saine said. “This is something no one had planned for. This is like nothing you or anyone else has dealt with.”
Number of job losses
Taylor had previously told that committee that during the height of the Great Recession, the unemployment office was handling around 100,000 unemployment claims a month.
Now, however, the state is getting more than that every week.
Tuesday marks exactly three weeks since Gov. Roy Cooper ordered bars and restaurants to close except for takeout and delivery, and the state is on track to pass 500,000 job losses within a few days.
As of Monday, the state has seen 445,000 unemployment claims, most of which were listed as being specifically due to COVID-19.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 3:02 PM.
