On Thursday, the Georgia Department of Labor announced that it paid out more than $1 billion in unemployment benefits last week, more than the $922 million issued over the past three years combined.
“The fact that we paid more than $1 billion in benefits in five days is a huge accomplishment,” said Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler. “When you think that the average weekly benefit amount is $246, the sheer volume of payments we are issuing is phenomenal.”
That billion dollars’ worth of payments was from $143 million in regular unemployment benefits from the state and an additional $886 million in federal funds including Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) payments, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) payments, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) supplements, and State Extended Benefits. Since the original “shutdown” in late March, Georgians have received nearly $10.5 billion in unemployment benefits.
From March 21 through July 18, more than 3.2 billion unemployment claims have been processed – more than the last seven years combined. Only about a third of those, 1.1 million, were identified as valid claims. Invalid claims could come from a variety of reasons, including duplicate filed claims – for those perhaps waiting impatiently – or those without enough earned wages to be eligible for benefits.
Claims last were down some 16,000 from the week prior but initial claims are still high, prompting an increase in fraud investigations.
“We are seeing suspected fraud in all shapes and sizes requiring us to split our time between valid claims and potentially fraudulent ones,” said Commissioner Butler. “We are working with state and federal law enforcement agencies to prosecute the bad actors who are monopolizing our time with fraudulent claims and keeping us from focusing on getting eligible Georgians paid their benefits.”
The announcement from the Department of Labor comes on the same day that talks of a new $1 trillion COVID-related relief packages broke down amid disagreement between the White House and Republican leadership in the Senate.
One of the biggest sticking points appears to be the extension of the federal unemployment assistance boost of $600-per-week payments. Those extra payments begin to expire this week at the same time as a federal moratorium on evictions is also ending. An announcement on the new relief package had been expected this week but that debut is likely pushed back until at least Monday.
The new bill is likely to include another round of stimulus checks and additional funding for schools to recover from the pandemic. Additionally, President Trump had suggested that he would not sign a bill that did not include a payroll tax cut but the Senate appears to not be interested in including the measure and not concerned about the bill’s passage without it, though everything is still in the early stages.
Without the new relief bill, news over the next couple weeks could be grim as millions of laid off workers lose $2,400 per month in benefits. This could mean a big hit in whatever spending is happening and other economic activity.
