“Ten thousand D.C. residents who experienced the longest delays in receiving unemployment compensation received an extra $500”

photo by Master of All Metal

From Council member Silverman’s office:

“Ten thousand D.C. residents who experienced the longest delays in receiving unemployment compensation received an extra $500 payment last week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The $500 wasn’t from Santa, but from a provision put in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget by the D.C. Council’s Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, which stipulated that the 10,000 unemployment compensation claimants with the longest waits receive the extra money.

“Delays in getting claimants their unemployment benefits were costly to many workers, because they incurred more debt by using high interest credit cards or borrowed money from loan servicers to make ends meet,” said Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At-Large), who chairs the Council’s Committee on Labor and Workforce Development. “We put this in the budget as a way to compensate claimants for the debt and aggravation.”

To be eligible for the $500 payment, workers had to have an unemployment insurance or pandemic unemployment assistance claim approved between March 16, 2020 and July 1, 2021 and had their payment delayed by at least 60 days. Only claimants who live in the District of Columbia can receive the $500 payment. A fact sheet on the delayed unemployment compensation payment is here.

“I know $500 isn’t a lot, but I hope it helped our workers, especially those in hospitality who might have experienced a loss of hours recently due to the Omicron variant,” Silverman said.”