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COVID 19: Federal Unemployment Benefits

Federal Unemployment Benefits Have Ended

Federal unemployment benefit programs under the CARES Act ended on September 4, 2021. You will no longer be paid benefits on the following claim types for weeks of unemployment after September 4:

Federal-State Extended Duration (FED-ED) benefits are no longer payable for weeks of unemployment after September 11.

Important: The federal government does not allow benefit payments to be made for weeks of unemployment after these programs end, even if you have a balance left on your claim. Any pending payments for weeks of unemployment before the expiration of benefits will be processed retroactively if you are found eligible and did not receive conditional payments. You will be notified about what to expect based on your claim type.

  1. Log in to UI Online.
  2. Select Claim History.
  3. Select Transactions next to the most recent week.
  4. Under Program Type, it will show what type of benefits you are receiving that week.

If your program type is:

  • UI, you are receiving regular unemployment.
  • PEUC, Extension Tier 2, or Extension Tier 2 (Augmentation), you are receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) benefits.
  • Extension FED-ED, you have used all PEUC benefits and are now receiving FED-ED extension benefits.
  • Disaster Assistance, you are receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). If you aren’t receiving PUA, you are receiving Disaster Unemployment Assistance following a declared disaster.

View federal unemployment benefits (PDF) and their limited availability.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

PUA benefits ended September 4, 2021. The last day to apply for PUA was October 6, 2021, for weeks of unemployment before September 4. For more information about PUA benefits, visit Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation

PEUC benefits ended September 4, 2021. 

Deferred New Claim Payment Program

If you qualified for the Deferred New Claim Payment (DNCP) program, we will automatically move you to your unexpired, regular unemployment claim which has a lower weekly benefit amount. We will notify you how to certify for future weeks on your regular unemployment claim.

Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) provided up to 53 additional weeks of payments if you’ve used all of your available unemployment benefits.

  • The first 13 weeks were available from March 29, 2020 to September 4, 2021. In UI Online, your claim type displays as PEUC.
  • After collecting the first 13 weeks, an additional 11 weeks were available beginning on or after December 27, 2020 to September 4, 2021. Your claim type displays as Extension Tier 2 in UI Online.
  • After collecting the first 24 weeks, an additional 29 weeks were available beginning on or after March 14, 2021 to September 4, 2021. Your claim type displays as Extension Tier 2 (Augmentation) in UI Online.

To have qualified for a PEUC extension, your regular UI claim must have started on July 8, 2018, or after.

If you ran out of benefits within your benefit year…

  • If you ran out of benefits within your benefit year, we automatically filed your PEUC extension on your regular unemployment claim.
    • If you were collecting on a FED-ED extension, you continued to collect it until it was exhausted. We filed the additional weeks of the PEUC extension after you used all FED-ED benefits.

If your benefit year ended…

  • If your benefit year ended, you were required to reapply for a new claim if you earned enough wages (paid by an employer) in the last 18 months and were still unemployed or working part time. If you had enough wages to qualify for regular unemployment, we processed your claim.
    • If you were collecting PEUC benefits and reapplied for a new regular unemployment claim, we might have continued to pay benefits on your PEUC extension, instead of your regular unemployment claim if the weekly benefit amount on your PEUC extension was at least $25 more than the amount on your new regular claim. This was allowed under the new Deferred New Claim Payment (DNCP) program. The regular unemployment claim you qualified for was on hold until you collected all available PEUC benefits, or until the PEUC extension ended on September 4, 2021, whichever came first.
    • Once you collected all available benefits on your PEUC extension, and if you were still unemployed and eligible, we automatically started paying benefits on your new regular claim.
  • If you didn’t qualify for a new claim after the benefit year ended, two things happened.
    • First, you received a $0 award notice in the mail saying there were not enough wages for a new claim.
    • A few days later, you received another notice showing that we automatically filed a PEUC extension on your expired unemployment claim. You also received a text message about the filed extension. If you were collecting PEUC benefits and reapplied but weren’t eligible, we continued paying you under the PEUC extension.

FED-ED Extension

Federal-State Extended Duration (FED-ED) benefits are not payable after September 11, 2021. For more information on this program, visit Fed-Ed Extension.

Pandemic Additional Compensation

PAC, also known as the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program, ended September 4, 2021.

For weeks of unemployment between December 27, 2020, and September 4, 2021, we were paying $300 in federal unemployment compensation on top of your current weekly benefit amount.

You did not need to do anything. We automatically added the federal unemployment compensation to each week of benefits that you were eligible to receive.

Any unemployment benefits through the end of the program are still eligible for the extra $300, even if you are paid later.

For weeks of unemployment between March 29 and July 25, 2020, we were paying $600 in federal unemployment compensation on top of your current weekly benefit amount.

Note: Pandemic Additional Compensation, also known as Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), is a taxable income and is reported to the IRS.

Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation

Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation (MEUC) benefits ended September 4, 2021.

The MEUC program paid an additional $100 per week in supplemental unemployment benefits to claimants who received regular unemployment or extension benefits and earned self-employment income in the year before their claim. You must apply for the program and meet all MEUC eligibility requirements under federal law.

MEUC payments are retroactive to December 27, 2020, and claimants could receive up to a total of 36 weeks of payments through September 4, 2021.

To receive MEUC benefits, you must have:

  • Been eligible for benefits on a:
    • Regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) claim
    • Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC)
    • Federal-State Extended Duration (FED-ED) extension
      • Note: If you are collecting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) or Training Extension (TE) benefits, you are not eligible for the MEUC program.
  • Been eligible to receive at least $1 in unemployment benefits, or have had your unemployment benefits applied to your overpayment, for each week between December 27, 2020, and September 4, 2021.
  • Apply for the MEUC program and provide documents that prove your net income (your pay after all taxes and deductions) from self-employment was at least $5,000. If your claim started in 2020, you need to have made at least $5,000 in 2019. If your claim started in 2021, you need to have made at least $5,000 in 2020.

Additional Resources

You may qualify for other state programs to help cover food, housing, and healthcare expenses.

To learn more about benefits ending and other assistance programs available, review: