The Maui News

Federal unemployment benefits end on Saturday, impacting Hawaii residents who are receiving aid under several unemployment programs, the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations announced.

The end of the federal assistance will impact individuals receiving Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation and Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation. Once these programs stop, only the regular unemployment insurance program will be available.

“We have been fielding a lot of questions from claimants asking whether they will qualify for a new unemployment insurance claim,” department Director Anne Perreira-Eustaquio said in a news release Tuesday. “In short, new unemployment insurance claims will be reinstated for all individuals who established a new initial claim but chose to remain on the PEUC program under the PEUC $25 Option. All other individuals will need to qualify for a new initial claim after September 4 based on existing criteria.

“That said, anyone waiting on claims filed through September 4 will be made whole and receive those benefits as long as they are otherwise qualified.”

The department recently emailed about 6,500 claimants who qualified for the PEUC $25 Option program advising them to file their claim certification for the week ending Sept. 4 between Sept. 5 and 11, regardless of whether their claim filing status is weekly or biweekly. To ensure a seamless transition, individuals should file their claim certifications as early as possible. Failure to submit a PEUC claim by the requested date may delay benefits, the department said.

Eligibility criteria for new, regular claims is available at hawaiiunemploymentinfo.com/end-of-the-federal-programs-2/. Individuals filing claim certifications under a regular claim starting Sept. 11 will be subject to a one-week waiting period and will be required to register for work with HireNet Hawaii. Claimants may file a claim certification for the first payable week of their claim but will not be paid benefits for that first week.

Individuals who neither qualified for the PEUC $25 Option nor meet the criteria for a new initial claim after Saturday should not file a new initial claim and should instead seek assistance at their county’s American Job Center, a free, one-stop center that provides career counseling, HireNet Hawaii support, skills training, job search assistance and a resource training center. For more information or to make an appointment with a local job center, visit hawaiiunemploymentinfo.com/resources/.

For more resources, visit humanservices.hawaii.gov/.