Following revised federal guidelines, the Georgia Department of Labor is requiring anyone who received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits on or after December 27, 2020, to provide proof of employment/self-employment or a valid offer to begin employment and proof of wages by August 14, 2021. Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler says this should have been included in the original CARES Act.
According to Butler, anyone who fails to respond by the August 14 date, will have their eligibility reconsidered. The claimant will be denied and required to repay all PUA benefits received during the denial period. Also, they could face possible criminal prosecution if it is determined they misrepresented facts to receive PUA benefits for which they were not entitled.
While PUA claimants were previously only required to provide proof of wages documentation, this new federal requirement to provide proof of employment documentation is a fraud prevention measure.
“Congress waited nine months into the pandemic to require the additional documentation, confusing many claimants who believed they had already fulfilled the obligation,” said Butler. “However, in an effort to authenticate these federal payments, we are asking that PUA claimants make sure these documents have been uploaded to avoid an overpayment situation.”
According to Butler, claimants must provide proof that they were employed or self-employed, and earned wages at some point between the start of the previous completed tax year (January 2019) through the date of their PUA application to show they were part of the labor market at the time the COVID-19 pandemic started, or that the they had an offer to begin employment or start self-employment but could not do so as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Butler said these claimants are required to complete this federal requirement even if they have returned to work, are no longer eligible for PUA benefits, were not receiving PUA benefits when the PUA program ended or are no longer receiving PUA benefits because the program ended. The documents do not have to be uploaded again if they have already been filed.
The GDOL has paid more than $22.9 billion in state and federal benefits in the past seventy-one weeks.
