After weeks of waiting, the Alaska Department of Labor says unemployment benefits will start going out to self-employed, contract, and gig-economy workers beginning Friday.
Those workers were previously ineligible for unemployment benefits because
they didn’t pay employment security tax. The federal CARES Act set up a new program to pay those non-traditional employees for the first time.
Now, the Department of Labor says 15,000 people have applied for the new program, called the Pandemic Unemployment Relief, or PUA program. They should start receiving payments at the end of this week.
In addition to weekly benefits based on previous wages earned, all workers who qualify for the PUA program will receive $600 per week.
The news comes as the Department of Labor announced nearly 9,000 new unemployment insurance claims during last week’s filing period. That number is about half of the all-time weekly high, set in the beginning of April.