Furloughed federal employees are starting to apply for unemployment compensation in their home states as the partial government shutdown stretches on and pressures workers’ finances.
The Virginia Employment Commission reports that it has had 479 requests for compensation filed by federal workers who were left idle by the shutdown, and it expects more soon.
“I can say with complete confidence that the filing of claims has picked up dramatically in the past few days,” William Walton, director of unemployment insurance services, told the Washington Examiner, adding that they were still processing them and the 479 figure was likely out of date.
Neighboring Maryland also reported a surge. “The pace has increased in the last week, not exponentially, but it has definitely picked up,” said Theresa Blaner, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The total number to date was 2,550.
Tiffany Brown, spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Employment Services, which is home to an estimated 102,000 workers from agencies that haven’t been paid, said the total unemployment claims from them had reached more than 4,800. The department had reported the figure at just 379 on Dec. 28, the first full week of the shutdown.
Federal workers are encouraged to apply for unemployment compensation should they qualify for it in their home states. Several federal websites, such as the Office of Personnel Management’s, have FAQs for furloughed workers that include information on how to file for benefits.
Walton was unable to provide an exact figure for the number of furloughed federal employees in his state. Governing magazine put the number federal employees who work at agencies without appropriations and reside in Virginia at more than 34,000, a number that includes workers who aren’t being paid but are still on the job. Maryland has a similar overall number, more than 28,000. That would indicate that lots of workers who were likely eligible in those states declined to file, at least until recently.
A spokesman for California’s Employment Development Department said it was still compiling the numbers for claims. The Golden State is home to more than 41,000 federal employees from agencies that haven’t received appropriations.
The spokespeople couldn’t say with certainty why the pace had increased, but said it was typical in the past for the rate of claims to pick up as a shutdown stretched on. Previous federal shutdowns rarely lasted more than two weeks, usually less. The current one is now on track to be the longest on record.
One reason why workers may have been reluctant to file claims is that they wouldn’t be allowed to keep the money. Any unemployment compensation given during a shutdown must be repaid once the government reopens, according to information posted on the OPM website and through various state agencies that process unemployment claims.
That’s because, in the past, once a federal shutdown ended, most workers were given the pay that they would have otherwise earned at their regular job. Bipartisan legislation passed by Congress Friday says that federal employees “must be compensated on the earliest date possible after the lapse ends.” However, getting paid by the regular employer invalidates an unemployment claim. Exactly how the workers would have to repay the claims varies from state to state, but they would likely be legally responsible to ensure it happened. California, for example, says that it “will mail a notice of overpayment to the employee” in such cases.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Friday urged the Labor Department to help the workers be able to file claims, asking secretary Alexander Acosta to lean on states to require less in the way of documentation from workers to receive benefits.
Less than half of all 800,000 federal workers not being paid during the shutdown are even eligible to receive unemployment. About 450,000 federal workers are currently on the job despite not being paid, due to a broadly defined exception for any work that relates to public safety. The remaining 350,000 are actually barred from appearing on the job, even to volunteer.
Those who are working but not being paid are not eligible for unemployment, Blaner said. The rule is that they have to be able to work but not actually working. “So if they are on the job, they don’t qualify,” she said.
