It has been three weeks since United States President Donald Trump signed the executive order as a way of boosting the unemployment aid, but states are still struggling to implement the $300 federal supplement as a part of the unemployment benefits.
Despite the approval coming from the federal government for most of the states to set up the program, as of Friday morning, only six states were able to manage to pay out the money that was allocated and this includes Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, and Tennessee.
Each state has a September 10 deadline on deciding whether to apply for the initiative as it was financed with $44billion relief funds for disaster under the budget of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Fox reported.
For most of the states who were not able to start giving out yet, the additional government aid could probably go out in the middle of September or even later if not done organized.
Since the $600 federal unemployment benefit expired last month, the slow roll out on the Lost Wages Assistance program kept the pockets of millions of Americans waiting for the extra federal aid.
According to the Trump administration, an initiative coming from the state officials could expedite things for speedy relief to their constituents as they already sidestepped Congress on their end.
On August 10, Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary shared that most states will be able to deliver the aid in just a span of two weeks but as that time came and only a few states were able to distribute the allotted federal aid to the unemployed people in their respective states.
According to Business Insider, policy expert at the National Employment Law Project, Michele Evermore shared that she would be incredibly nervous in making money as there is only a little guidance on it and it came so fast with very little forethought.
She also stated that the delay may be caused by the checking and the review done by the states as they made sure that they are making this move according to the law and she does not blame the state officials for that.
She also mentioned that the worst thing that could happen to the state officials is that a chunk of benefits already goes out and then you find out that there is something wrong with your procedure and you have to redo it.
Along with Evermore, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, Andrew Stettner estimated that the program will be providing aid to unemployed Americans for around six weeks. And about 28 million persons are receiving the benefits intended for the unemployed people which will be covering 305 to 50% of the wages that were lost.
Aside from the benefits program pushed by the Trump administration, state agencies are currently struggling as they are still processing huge numbers of claims every week.
On the other hand, state agencies were asked to work with FEMA about the new set up that they will be following which includes a new system, requirements, and additional rules to follow.
