Have you applied for unemployment and certified for all your weeks in August? Great! If not, this post is for you.

Now during COVID (until December 27), you can apply for Unemployment and get retroactive payments back to the date you became unemployed. So technically, there is no rush to apply. However… there is a good reason to apply and certify now. Don’t push it off or you risk losing $900 or more.

ISSUE

The  $300 weekly Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) has a clause: Once the program finishes (read more here), no funds will be paid, even if someone is retroactively eligible. Let’s say, for example, the LWA program finishes on September 6th, 2020. If you apply for Unemployment on September 7th, with an effective start date of March 15th (retroactive), then although you would get all the regular unemployment payments and the extra $600 per week for April-July, you will likely not get the extra $300 per week for August. 

The same thing is with ‘certifying back weeks’.  If you applied for Unemployment, were approved and have started receiving payments, but have not certified your ‘back weeks’. If you don’t certify the August weeks before the program finishes, you likely won’t get the extra $300 a week.

Obviously, anything can change, but you stand to lose $900 (or more) if you delay applying for Unemployment and certifying your August weeks.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

• If you might be eligible for unemployment, apply as soon as you can. 
• If you already applied and were approved, don’t wait for the Docusign email to certify your backweeks. Preemptively send a message via the message center to certify all your back weeks.
• If you already applied for unemployment and certified all your backweeks, including the weeks in August, you don’t need to do anything for now.

Need help with applying or certifying back weeks? Reach out via email or WhatsApp.

The following Question & Answer was published by the DOL:

Question: If a determination of eligibility for a prior week of unemployment is not made until after the LWA program is terminated, will LWA be paid for that week?  

Answer:  The LWA program will terminate once one of the four termination provisions is met; no further LWA will be payable at that point.  An individual whose eligibility status is determined after this end date is not entitled to LWA for weeks of unemployment occurring before the end date.

Related Article: Extra $300 a Week in Unemployment: Lost Wage Assistance