Colorado’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Paralyzed -

BENEFICIARIES HAVE NOT RECEIVED PAYMENTS SINCE DECEMBER

El Comercio de Colorado Newsroom

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We spoke with a recipient of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program who is frustrated because he has not been able to receive support from the program in the past 11 weeks. Our interviewee collected his benefits up to December 26th, the date in which the CARES Act, a financial aid law that created the PUA to protect those who lost their income as independent workers due to the pandemic, ended.

This is the case of our interviewee who works as a taxi driver for Uber. “I lost all my income with the stoppage of the airport and the closure of businesses. I signed up for this program. When the economy was opening back up, I did not need to receivements, but I continued to update my information with the PUA,” he told us. And he continued, “With the new business closings in January and February 2021, I needed the help again; but until today I have not been able to receive it.”

At the beginning of January, another law came into action that extended the PUA until March 13^th. Our interviewee has not been able to collect his benefits yet again, which he assures that he urgently needs. “I had to register again and verify my identity. I have done everything they have asked me to do. The system won’t let me process my profit the way I used to. I am concerned that I am not eligible to collect and have had a response to my claim,” he stated.

The answer

Jessica Hudgins Smith, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) answered some of our interviewee’s doubts. “We understand that navigating the unemployment process is complex and stressful, and we are doing everything we can to ensure that all eligible applicants receive their payments. We are implementing Phase 2 of the extended benefits included in the Continuing Assistance Act (CAA).”

Smith continued, “Most beneficiaries now have access to reopen and file new claims. If a claimant still does not receive benefits after requesting payment, their claim may have an integrity issue or may be affected by issues within the MyUI + system. We have communicated when the fixes for these issues will be implemented on the MyUI + Healthcheck page of our new UI Portal.”

The official concluded by explaining, “We know that not communicating with the call center is an extremely frustrating experience. We have addressed this in a number of ways, including launching the UI Portal, a new FAQ page that addresses common questions we have received from our grantee community, and our virtual agent at ColoradoUI.gov that is available 24 hours a day.”