One month after President Donald Trump signed a $2-trillion stimulus package into law, Connecticut’s Department of Labor has started to issue the additional unemployment payments that the law contains.
Officials announced Tuesday that DOL has programmed its computer system and begun issuing the first round of weekly benefits, which total $89 million ($600 per claimant) to Connecticut’s suddenly swollen ranks of unemployed workers.
The so-called Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation is retroactive to March 29, and will be provided through July 25. DOL says the retroactive payments, which can be checked here, will be paid as a lump sum by the end of this week, with direct deposits appearing by Tuesday of next week.
Connecticut is behind most states in beginning to issue the extra payments.
CNBC reported that as of April 22, 44 states had begun issuing the federal benefits.
The delay was the result of technical problems with DOL’s outdated computer system, which led to a nearly two-month backlog in processing applications before a fix was made earlier this month.
“Our Department of Labor worked day and night to come up with the technological fixes to ensure benefits were distributed in a timely way to our residents,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement Tuesday. “There are hundreds of thousands in our state relying on our Department of Labor to help get them through this crisis, and the state’s loyal and hard-working team never lost sight of that. This is a difficult time for so many, and I appreciate that these new benefits are being distributed.”
DOL Commissioner Kurt Westby said that after the complicated task of fixing the 40-year-old mainframe, which uses an outdated operating system, his agency has now processed over 340,000 of the 402,000 claims filed since March 13.