PHOENIX, AZ — As industries in Arizona begin to reopen, some of the workers who have been off for more than a month never received unemployment benefits.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) confirms that workers will receive retroactive unemployment benefit payments for the weeks they did not work "even if their claims are processed after they have already returned to work," according to spokesman Brett Bezio.
Workers who are eligible for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) which includes gig-workers, self-employed, freelancers, part-time worker and others who have exhausted regular unemployment, will be receive payments for eligible weeks dating back to February 2.
Bezio says workers had to have submitted weekly claims through the DES system in order to qualify. And that the agency is reviewing applications that were deemed "monetarily ineligible" for regular state benefits, to see if they qualify.
The PUA program is slated to launch on May 12.