Nearly 23,000 unemployed Connecticut workers received an additional $35 million over the last several weeks ”“ an accomplishment Gov. Ned Lamont said was due to an executive order he signed last month.
Executive Order No. 9P, which went into effect on Dec. 4, retroactively and temporarily increased weekly unemployment benefits to $100 for many Connecticut residents, enabling them to qualify for the federal Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) Program.
The $7.35 million investment by the state unlocked the five-to-one match from the federal government and provided the average participating claimant with more than $1,700 in assistance, according to Lamont. To date, 22,837 of Connecticut”™s unemployed have received the funds.
The program ultimately is expected to have generated more than $80 million in economic activity and to provide small businesses across the state with a boost in consumer spending.
The LWA program offered an additional $300 in weekly benefits for six weeks late last summer to claimants who were unemployed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, to be eligible for the program, the Trump administration required that all claimants must be receiving more than $100 per week in unemployment benefits, which Lamont said had left thousands in the state unable to participate.
“What a difference this program made to those most in need of some good news this holiday season,” Lamont said. “Thanks to the hard work of our Connecticut Department of Labor, we were able to expand access to federal funding so thousands of Connecticut residents could better support themselves, their families, and the local economy. And thanks to the hard work of Connecticut”™s Congressional delegation, enhanced unemployment benefits are once again available to residents facing financial hardship because of the pandemic.”
The recent CARES Act II extends the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, which now provides an additional $300 per week to everyone receiving unemployment benefits, as well as the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the Pandemic Extended Unemployment Compensation Program, through mid-March.
