New unemployment benefits available to jobless North Carolinians starting Friday
A new type of unemployment benefit will become available in North Carolina starting Friday.
Funded by the federal coronavirus stimulus package, it’s for people who lost their job but have already used up all of their state unemployment benefits.
The program will last through the end of the year, and is retroactive to April 4. That means anyone who should have been getting benefits between then and now will still get paid, even though the applications only just opened.
People who are eligible won’t automatically be enrolled, however. They’ll have to go online to des.nc.gov and fill out a new application for the benefits or learn how to qualify.
The specific program is called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC.
Another type of federal unemployment benefits for self-employed people called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, has been available for the last month.
The PUA and PEUC benefits are for people who won’t get state unemployment benefits. But people who do get state unemployment benefits will also get federal benefits, through the third federal program. It’s called Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or FPUC.
All three unemployment programs are separate from the federal stimulus checks for up to $1,200 that went out to most Americans, regardless of whether they lost their jobs.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 6:06 PM with the headline "New unemployment benefits available to jobless North Carolinians starting Friday."
