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Department of Labor & Workforce Development

NJ Labor Dept. Offers Potentially Eligible Claimants New Chance to Certify for FEMA $300 Payments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 12, 2020

TRENTON –The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development is preparing to process another round of FEMA $300 payments for eligible unemployment claimants who were not working, or were working reduced hours, due to COVID-19 between Aug. 1 and Sept. 5.

Just over 100,000 New Jerseyans who are potentially eligible for the benefit were notified this weekvia email and text message with instructions. A second text message will go out Thursday afternoon reminding claimants of Thursday’s 11:59 pm deadline to take action. Payments will be processed Friday, and eligible claimants can expect to see a lump-sum amount in their direct deposit accounts or on their debit cards Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, depending on their bank. 

This is a limited-time supplemental benefit of $300 per week, for a maximum payment of $1,800. Claimants who received this benefit last month will not receive another payment. There is no need to call the Labor Department.

“Our top priority is to get the maximum amount of financial relief to unemployed New Jerseyans as quickly as possible,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo. “We are happy to give potentially eligible claimants another opportunity to certify for this federal benefit.”

In two prior rounds of FEMA payments, the Labor Department distributed $1.2 billion in payments to 778,000 claimants, who per the federal program rules had certified their unemployment during the eligibility period was COVID related.

For the week ending Nov. 7, New Jersey saw a 15 percent drop in new unemployment claims,  for a weekly total of 20,976* new claims. This is the fourth straight week of declines, and represents about 3,700 fewer new claims than the prior week.

Approximately 1.78 million people have applied for unemployment since mid-March, and 1.465 million have met the monetary requirements for benefits. Of those, 96 percent have received payment. The average claimant has received more than $13,000 in benefits.

The Department has distributed $18.7 billion in payments to unemployed and under employed New Jersey workers, including $241 million last week.

Click the images below to view them full-size.

Here is a look at the number of new unemployment claims received by the department each week:

Here is a look at the weekly payments made by the Labor Department to eligible claimants:

PUA, PEUC and FPUC are federal programs authorized by Congress under the CARES Act. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) provides benefits through the end of the year; maximum eligibility is 46 weeks. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) provides 13 weeks of federal benefits for those who exhaust 26 weeks of state unemployment. Most of them are able to transition to 20 weeks of state Extended Benefits (EB). Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) provided $600/week to everyone eligible for unemployment for the weeks of April 4 through July 25. LWA provided up to six weeks of supplemental benefits through FEMA to people unemployed the weeks of Aug. 1 through Sept. 5 due to COVID, and who were eligible for at least $100 in weekly unemployment.

For more information on state or federal unemployment programs, visit myunemployment.nj.gov.

Anyone looking for work is encouraged to visit New Jersey’s jobs portal -- jobs.covid19.nj.gov.

For national unemployment data, visit https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdfFor archived NJ claims data, visit https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/DataDashboard.asp.

*This represents the final number for the week ending Nov. 7. The number listed for New Jersey by the US Department of Labor – 19,987 – is based on advanced reporting.

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