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Part-time employee, full-time student applying for PUA

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  • mbd1978
    2020-05-18 11:52:11 PM
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    Ok, so asking for a friend...

    18 year old college student in Utah had been working part time for about 15 months. She was working 15-20 hours per week at her most recent job which closed down due to COVID-19. She originally applied for traditional UI, not knowing that she wouldn’t automatically be approved for PUA if/once it was approved. Eventually, she found out that she needed to apply separately because she didn’t qualify for traditional UI.

    She has been doing her weekly claim each week, including doing retroactive claims back to the date that she became unemployed. She has been doing this from the PUA link on the Utah DWS website. Today, she gets something saying that a decision has been made on her PUA claim, and that the monetary amount was something like $220/wk.

    So, does that mean that she does not qualify for at least $600/wk? Or, does that mean that she will get the $220/wk + the $600? She is very confused, and I am confused for her.

    Thanks!

  • J.K.Logic
    2020-05-19 10:54:41 AM
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    That's a good question. So its actually the latter; she got approved for $220/wk of unemployment benefits from the state. And then she will also get an additional $600/wk from the federal govt, as part of the expanded unemployment program of the CARES Act. Utah's unemployment dept will process both payments weekly, and either do them separately or at the same time; have heard it being done both ways depending on the state. Not sure Utah's protocol there.

    But yes, she should get $220/wk + $600/wk =$820/wk.

    The caveat here is the $600/wk only currently lasts until July 31st. After that she would just qualify for the $220/wk. And the $220/wk would pay out for a grand total of up to 39 weeks, as long as she continues to qualify. Utah's normal maximum week payout is 26 weeks, but expanded unemployment adds an additional 13 weeks to state benefits.

    Also, the House just passed a bill for the Senate to vote on soon that is trying to expand the $600/wk from July 31st to January of 2021. That bill is far from law, but it is possible it does get extended in the next round of relief packages.

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