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Kansas CARES Act program to deliver backlogged payments

Thousands of claimants from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program will soon be delivered delayed payments. The CARES Act-funded program pays benefits to the self-employed, gig workers and some others. Around 4,600 Kansas residents on the backlog list will receive payment.

The Kansas Department of Labor announced Friday development with the state’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program (PUA).

Funded through the CARES Act,  the program pays unemployment insurance benefits to those who wouldn’t typically qualify for it such as self-employed and gig workers.

Acting Kansas Secretary of Labor Ryan Wright said his department has been able to build out a key piece of the system to get payments out to the claims. The update affects about 4,600 of the 20,000 claims currently in the backlog.

Wright said claimants, many of whom have likely been waiting to receive PUA payments since the beginning of the pandemic, may get some long-delayed relief soon. He blamed the need for additional oversight on PUA claims compared to regular claims for the struggles. He said the department is working to notify affected claimants, so they can access their profile in KDOL system and update any needed documents.

“It’s not an insignificant lift of paperwork that needs to be added to verify for each week, but we’re already paying people out for the full time that they’ve had those claims,” Wright said.

He noted that determining PUA eligibility isn’t terribly complicated, so the Labor Department should be able to get payments out quickly after the adjudication process is complete.