Many out-of-work Minnesotans should not experience a lapse in unemployment benefits from a delay in the rollout of the federal stimulus bill thanks to the pandemic relief package passed by state lawmakers earlier this month.
But some will.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) will have to do some acrobatics in the coming days to keep unemployment benefits flowing to Minnesotans as it hustles to integrate the recently passed state and federal pandemic relief bills.
This week, it is enacting the new state program that provides additional jobless benefits for some workers while planning to transition to the expanded federal programs next week.
“This is an incredible amount of work for our folks,” Blake Chaffee, a deputy commissioner at DEED, said in an e-mail. “We are going to move as quickly possible.”
The $900 billion federal bill approved by Congress last week extends a handful of unemployment programs that expired the day after Christmas and includes a supplemental $300 a week in benefits. It also provides stimulus checks of $600 and other relief for small businesses, hospitals and schools.
But President Donald Trump sat on the bill for days, saying he wanted the direct payments to be $2,000 instead of $600. Facing bipartisan pressure, he finally signed the bill on Sunday.
“President Trump’s delay in signing the stimulus means that benefits to Minnesotans are delayed,” Chaffee said.
Instead of the extensions and new programs starting this week as expected, the federal programs, including the additional $300 a week, will go into effect next week.
State lawmakers included additional unemployment benefits of up to 13 weeks in their bill as a stopgap in case the federal government did not reach an agreement in time to extend the jobless programs.
So about 100,000 Minnesotans who have exhausted their 26 weeks of regular unemployment insurance will continue to receive payments in the interim through that state program until the extended federal benefits kick back in next week.
Eligible workers do not have to apply for the additional state benefits. DEED will automatically add it to their accounts as long as they continue to request weekly payments.
But the additional state benefits do not cover about 40,000 gig workers and other self-employed workers in Minnesota who have been receiving payments through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. That program was renewed in the federal stimulus bill, but this group should expect to see a weeklong delay before the program is back up and running.
Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113