State Regulators Pushing to Give Federal Pandemic Aid to Laid-Off Wisconsinites With Disabilities
Friday, June 19th, 2020 -- 9:20 AM
(AP) -After issuing a slew of denials, state regulators are now pushing to give federal pandemic aid to laid-off Wisconsinites with disabilities.The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is asking the U.S. Department of Labor to allow it to issue Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program under Congress’ disaster stimulus bill, to unemployed workers who also receive federal disability benefits. DWD spokesman Ben Jedd on Tuesday said the agency had yet to hear the labor department’s response. The request signals a possible about-face in practice, and it follows a WPR/Wisconsin Watch report about the DWD’s denials of aid under the program to such part-time workers. About 175,000 working-age Wisconsinites rely on SSDI to supplement their income, a vast majority of whom work. SSDI guidelines allow, and even encourage, part-time work so long as an employee does not earn more than $1,260 per month. The federal program serves people who have worked and paid Social Security taxes but can no longer perform “substantially gainful activity.”
But Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled Legislature in 2013 passed a law barring that group from simultaneously receiving state unemployment insurance after losing work. DWD staff has cited that law in blocking Barrera and other SSDI recipients from receiving benefits under PUA, separate funds Congress earmarked for people who lost their jobs because of the pandemic but “would not qualify for regular unemployment compensation.” DWD Secretary Caleb Frostman is now asking the federal government to allow Wisconsin to change course.
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