On December 27, 2020 the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act was signed into law. This implemented an extension to unemployment, including PUA, with a $300 FPUC boost for 11 weeks. Included in this bill was a program integrity provision that requires that all states ask new and current claimants to provide proof of income for eligibility for PUA. We are demanding this be done fairly, efficiently and quickly. 

Eligibility for PUA has always been based on having income in 2019 or a qualified job offer that was rescinded due to Covid-19 as well as being affected by one of the Covid eligibility requirements. But up until now it has been based on self certification, no proof was required. While it is understandable and acceptable to ask claimants to provide this proof, it is NOT acceptable to stop payments while doing so. The bill allows current claimants who have received a payment after 12/27/20, 90 days to provide this documentation. MA PUA is issuing it along with a Covid eligibility fact finding which puts a claim on pending status and halts all payments. The last time this was done in mass amounts for identity verification, claimants were on hold and unpaid for over 7 weeks! With thousands and thousands of claimants, there is no way they can process these documents in a timely manner and to stop payments with no warning and no timeframe, will cause a great hardship on unemployed workers already experiencing hardship due to the pandemic. I do not believe this is what legislators had in mind when passing this bill! Other states have begun issuing the fact finding and they do NOT hold claimants payments. We are demanding the same. That MA PUA do not hold claimants payments during the 90 day timeframe allowed to current claimants. 

We also asking for our documentation for income verification and Covid eligibility to be processed in a timely and fair manner. There should be clear cut guidelines that list what is acceptable and what is not, who is eligible and who is not. Instead, some claimants are approved while others are denied for submitting the same proof because being approved is based solely on the adjudicator viewing the claim. This causes unfair denials with no understanding of what is actually allowed and what is not.
Prior to this bill, claimants were able to collect based on a job offer that was rescinded due to Covid. It was only now, a year later, that the fact finding requires the job offer to be from a registered employer. There are many collecting for a year now that had job offers for businesses without a tax ID number and since they have stated that PUA is for those “who don’t normally qualify for unemployment” including self employed and those with an insufficient work history, they believed themselves to be eligible. Now they will be denied because PUA waited a year to issue eligibility requirements? How is this fair?
When so many are denied, as is soon to be the case, appeals will take months. So on top of holding claimants pay while issuing the fact finding and waiting to be approved or denied for weeks, one must then wait months on an appeal to even have the chance of seeing any income when this is the only income many claimants have to live off of! 

We are also questioning the fact that a denial for a Covid eligibility fact finding results in an overpayment for the entire amount of payments the claimant has received despite the bill and the US Department of Labor’s guidelines specifically stating that denials can only result in the claimant being issued an overpayment for payments received after 1/1/21 only. How are they going directly against the guidelines? Those who have been collecting since last March will now over $28,000 back for a denial they should only owe $4,500 back for, that is a big difference for those already in jeopardy of losing everything. 

Who will hold them accountable if not us? I have reached out to my state rep, congresswoman, senators, Governor Baker and Richard Jeffers, head of the DUA, for guidance on this. For help. For understanding. Someone to see that this is not right and it is not just. I have not heard back from anyone. With the fact finding about to be issued to claimants in mass numbers, now is the time to stand up and demand change. Please join me in doing so, hold MA PUA accountable, because if we don’t, who will?