Unemployment benefits in Pennsylvania: how to claim the weekly payment
Residents who have exhausted their state or federal jobless payments can use the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) programme to extend the weekly payments.
SAUL LOEB
AFP
As the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic continue to strangle the American jobs market, more people are being forced to rely on
unemployment insurance to ensure that they can pay the bills. In Pennsylvania, the
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programme, or
PEUC for short, has proved to be a vital lifeline.
The weekly payments are funded by the emergency stimulus bill signed into law in late December as the additional unemployment benefits were on the brink of running out. The PEUC programme provides an additional 24 weeks of support for those who have exhausted their state benefits.
Fraud, according to the U.S. Labor Department, is the primary reason more than $36 billion in unemployment payments have been lost since the pandemic began a year ago.
Scammers have largely focused on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which was created by the federal CARES Act late last March. And this is going on in all states, the acting secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry said on Tuesday afternoon.
âFraudsters are stealing information,â Jennifer Berrier said during a virtual news briefing. âSome are creating Facebook pages that look like L&Iâs Facebook page or falsely identify themselves as L&I employees.