Are Americans getting extra money for Unemployment during Covid-19 pandemic?

The United States unemployment rate has hit 14.7% the highest it has been since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Also a total of 20.5 million jobs have been wiped out since the coronavirus pandemic hit the nation according to government figures released this Friday, both numbers are post-World War II records in the United States.

Since the quarantine period started in mid-March millions of Americans lost their jobs because businesses were forced to shut down and people started applying for unemployment immediately to receive economic help during the outbreak.

Since the CARES Act was signed by President Donald Trump on 27 March, people who qualified for unemployment started receiving an extra $600 to help them through the pandemic on top of the $1,200 they should receive from the stimulus checks.

Each state is different with the payments

Not everything is good news because each state has its own laws and policies so the extra amount of money they receive from unemployment varies. That is what the government decided to create the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) is a program that temporarily expands unemployment insurance (UI) eligibility to self-employed workers, freelancers, independent contractors, and part-time workers impacted by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

Immigrants where left out

Since self-employed workers, freelancers and independent contractors didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits in the beginning the agencies decided to respond quickly and create the PUA program to help these Americans. The one’s left out were immigrants who even though they contribute to the economy and pay their taxes were excluded from the CARES Act. That is why California’s Gov. Gavin Newsome created a program to give them a one time stimulus payment to aid them through this pandemic.