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\u201cSo there\u2019s some really sweeping eligibility changes, which are good,\u201d Valand said. \u201cThey\u2019re casting a really wide net to try and make sure that pretty much everybody who\u2019s not working right now can benefit from unemployment insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other big change is that the CARES Act will dramatically increase the assistance amount as well as extend the period that individuals receive unemployment from 26 to 39 weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way unemployment insurance works right now, you get 55% of your gross lost weekly wages up to about $618 where it caps out,\u201d Valand said. \u201cIn this new legislation, they\u2019re going to pay an additional $600 to everyone who\u2019s receiving unemployment insurance on top of their weekly benefit amount. That\u2019s a really dramatic increase in terms of the total dollars that folks are going to receive through unemployment insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though the CARES Act was signed by the president Friday, Cher Haavind, deputy executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, was asking those unemployed workers who are newly eligible to wait a few days before applying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to receive federal guidance quickly and are already working on reprogramming the systems and creating some charts so that workers know, based on their situation, what they might be eligible to receive,\u201d Haavind said.<\/p>\n
That is good news to many Coloradans who have found themselves without work since the COVID-19 outbreak resulted in the closure of many businesses over the past two weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe system is experiencing more ability and expanded capacity to take in consistently around 15,000 to 20,000 claims a day,\u201d Haavind said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an increase over last week when the closure of restaurants, bars and movie theaters resulted in nearly 25,000 unemployment applications being filed, following a statewide stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Jared Polis. Last week\u2019s spike overwhelmed the online system resulting in frustration, long wait times and applications failing to go through.<\/p>\n
Haavind said the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment continues to see improved performance in its an online application process. The department implemented a new last name online filing system where claimants with last names that begin with the letter A through M file claims on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays or after noon on Saturdays. Those with last names beginning with N through Z may file their claims on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and before noon on Saturdays.<\/p>\n
Officials also are hoping rule changes, including waiving the work search requirement and the one-week waiting period, will expedite processing and cut the time unemployed workers have to wait for the first benefit payment from four to six weeks to 10 to 14 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to make predictions right now,\u201d said Ryan Gedney, senior economist at the state department of labor and employment. \u201cI think it\u2019s really dependent on how quickly the virus can be contained. I would say we\u2019re just seeing the beginning of this \u2026 to try and identify when we might see this start to tail out is extremely difficult at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 On Friday, the $2 trillion CARES Act was passed by the U.S. Senate and the House and then signed into law by President Donald Trump, bringing much-needed relief to those who have lost their jobs and income as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. \u201cThe Senate bill backdates these provisions to Jan. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22159","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 19:14:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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