The Connecticut Department of Labor has begun issuing the first round of weekly federal stimulus payments to filers receiving state unemployment benefits. The additional $600 weekly payment is retroactive to March 29th and will be provided through July 25th. For those who already received unemployment benefits for previous weeks, DOL will be providing retroactive payments as a lump sum by the end of this week.

Agency employees are continuing to work to implement the remaining two recently established federal stimulus programs.  Both programs will be retroactive.

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance provides benefits for self-employed individuals among others.  DOL expects to begin accepting applications on April 30th.

Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation is a 13-week extension that allows eligible claimants to collect the additional weeks, after exhausting the 26 weeks of state benefits.  That program should be in operation by mid-May.

Connecticut and other states with old computer systems have been delayed in processing the federal payments because the state Department of Labor’s database needed to be modified, which officials said was a labor-intensive process while handling an unprecedented number of state unemployment claims.