ATLANTA (AP) — Many people collecting unemployment benefits in Georgia will get up to $1,800 in extra federal assistance over the next two weeks, Labor Commissioner Mark Butler announced Thursday.
The amount represents up to six weeks of $300-a-week emergency federal payments that President Donald Trump announced last month using $44 billion in federal disaster money. The Republican president announced the plan after an additional $600-a-week that was paid on top of other jobless benefits expired on Aug. 1
To be eligible, Georgia recipients must already be getting at least $100 a week in state benefits, or $149 a week in benefits from the special federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for self-employed, nonprofit and gig workers.
State Department of Labor spokesperson Kersha Cartwright said the state can’t yet estimate how many people will be paid the $300-a-week benefit or how much in total will be paid. There were 526,000 people collecting state benefits as of Aug. 29, and another 260,000 collecting the special pandemic assistance.
Georgia was approved for the federal money on Aug. 23, but had to program its computer system to pay the money.