Pa Dept. L&I Holding Virtual Town Hall on Unemployment Benefits Tomorrow at 1 p.m.

L&I Holding Virtual Town Hall on Unemployment Benefits Tomorrow at 1 p.m.
Harrisburg, PA – Pennsylvanians can ask questions directly to unemployment compensation experts during the Department of Labor & Industry’s (L&I) eleventh live virtual town hall from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM tomorrow, Thursday, August 6, 2020. The event will feature information about regular unemployment compensation (UC) and other federal COVID-19-related benefits programs.

How to participate

A livestream will be online at https://access.live/PAlabor. Those without internet access can listen by calling 1-833-380-0719, however access is limited so we ask that they be reserved for individuals who need them.

Participants can ask questions live during the town hall. To protect participants’ personal confidential information, detailed answers about individual claim questions cannot be answered during the town hall.

Pennsylvania has implemented all of the new programs under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act:

  • Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) – for self-employed, gig workers, contractors and others not normally eligible for UC.
  • Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) – additional 13 weeks of benefits to people who exhaust their regular UC.
  • Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) – extra $600 per week for anyone receiving unemployment benefits.
    • The federal government created and funded the FPUC program. Under federal requirement, the claim week ending July 25, 2020, was the last $600 FPUC payment claimants will receive. However, anyone receiving payments for UC claim weeks April 4 through July 25 will still receive backdated FPUC payments if eligible. The federal government must approve any extension of the program.

Improving Customer Service

  • 229,726 overtime hours worked by L&I UC staff since mid-March.
  • 122 percent increase in UC service center staffing levels since March 15 – with 775 employees supporting UC service center operations than compared to the current total of 1,719.
  • The following claimants have been helped since March 15:
    • 702,896 through email;
    • 324,361 by phone;
    • 123,308 by LiveChat; and
    • 276,385 by Virtual Assistant.

Additionally, 94 percent of the eligible claimants have been paid or are not eligible for benefits among applicants from March 15 and July 4, if they filed a continuing claim to request a payment. The remaining 6 percent are claims that the automated system couldn’t approve for various reasons and are under individual review by staff.

Important Resources and Links

Recordings of prior public town halls are available here. Additional unemployment benefits information is available on L&I’s website, Facebook or Twitter.