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unemployment insurance

    ECONOMY

    Unemployment Mess Threatens Coverage for Some

    Pandemic response expands and complicates eligibility

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Unemployment insurance dates back to the New Deal, but it played a starring role in keeping Americans solvent during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Century Foundation, more than 1.5 million people in Massachusetts have collected unemployment benefits at some point since the economic shutdown began a year ago. A series of new programs were created by Congress last March to make more Americans eligible for benefits, to keep them eligible longer, and to replace more of their income. Those programs were revised and extended several times in the 12 months since then.

    Though the reach of unemployment insurance has expanded, a fiendish maze has arisen for those trying to collect. Benefits can come from different places and expire at different times, and they need to be triggered on and off in a certain sequence. While the people running the system have been buried in legalities, those in need are getting frozen out: payments can be held up for months, key information arrives late or not at all, and I.D. checks can lead to intimidating orders to pay back thousands of dollars.

    Because unemployment insurance systems in many states have been targeted by overseas fraudsters, comprehensive identity checks have been implemented.

    “It’s the identity checks that are really gumming up the works right now,” said Monica Halas, an unemployment insurance expert at Greater Boston Legal Services. “It sucks the air out of the whole system — there’s not enough people left to deal with anything else.”

    According to data compiled by the Century Foundation, Massachusetts has some of the slowest response times in the country.

    The Century Foundation tracks many aspects of unemployment insurance nationwide, including timeliness of decisions by state agencies.

    In January, only 4 percent of eligibility decisions in Massachusetts were made within the federally recommended 21 days; 46 percent took more than 50 days. And eligibility is actually a separate process from identity verification, which can take even longer.

    The state Dept. of Unemployment Assistance “has just started a new method that they’re hoping will speed things up,” said Halas. “This website, called ID.me, has contracts with a bunch of states now. You can go to that website and it should speed up your I.D. verification with DUA.”

    A separate problem has to do with transitioning from one new benefits program to another. To the state, it’s hugely significant whether a given week of benefits is paid from the state’s unemployment insurance fund or through the CARES Act or some other federal source. The state will send letters that announce “your benefits are exhausted,” then fail to explain that there’s another program queued up to offer continuing support.

    “It’s so confusing — the communication is terrible,” said Halas. “So, first, people should keep on claiming weeks. Do not assume, no matter what notice you are getting, that you are at the end of the line. Second, reach out for help. Call your local legal aid office — for Cape Cod, it’s South Coast Legal Services — or your state representative or state senator’s office.” Given all the programs that have been enacted and expanded, Halas said, nobody who is without a job for a Covid-related reason has actually run out of benefits.

    “Honestly, it’s very much like the vaccine website, where you go online and you’re waiting 11 minutes, and then it’s 3 days, and then it’s 2.5 hours. It’s insanity!” said Maggie Flanagan, program director at the Homeless Prevention Council, which helps people access unemployment insurance and a range of other resources.

    This is especially relevant because the shutdown order is approaching its one-year anniversary. Because unemployment works on a “benefit year,” people who filed last March will soon be receiving notices that their benefit year has ended. That does not mean there are no more benefits available.

    “If your benefit year ends, you need to reapply for regular state unemployment insurance, because they have to test your eligibility for all these programs,” said Halas.

    Who’s Covered by What?

    The state publishes extremely detailed reports on the “traditional” state unemployment system, but almost nothing at all on the new programs that were devised in 2020. That means there is only a partial snapshot of claimants on the Outer Cape, especially early in the pandemic, when most people were on regular unemployment insurance. As time goes on, and more people move into new programs, it becomes harder to know how many people are benefitting.

    Enrollment seems to have peaked in April 2020, when the four Outer Cape towns had about 1,650 people filing for regular unemployment benefits. At that time, those regular benefits plus an augmented $600 per week for all filers meant the program was funneling $1.6 million to the Outer Cape every week.

    The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program was created for gig workers, independent contractors, and other people not covered by traditional unemployment insurance. There are no town-by-town data for that program, but the Century Foundation has statewide data for it.

    After a bumpy rollout in May, PUA covered almost as many people as regular unemployment insurance did for June and July in Massachusetts. As people left regular unemployment for various other programs, PUA covered more people than regular unemployment in the fall and winter.

    As of mid-February, the four outermost towns had 878 people filing for regular unemployment insurance, representing a half million dollars a week in income. If statewide patterns hold here, there could be the same number of people or more on PUA and the other programs.

    Neither the state nor the Century Foundation has hard data on how many people are filing and not being paid benefits. It could be a very large number. The Independent has been shown letters from the state saying that an individual’s benefits are exhausted; letters saying identity could not be verified and benefits are canceled; and letters saying that identity could not be verified and all benefits ever paid since 2019 must be paid back — more than $10,000 in some cases.

    Those “demands for repayment” can be fully resolved with proof of identity — but finding someone at the state who can process that proof is the problem.

    “I get that their system was suddenly overwhelmed,” said Flanagan. “But who are the people being negatively impacted? Once again, it’s the working class and the vulnerable.

    SAFETY NET

    Outer Cape Workers Could Be Denied Unemployment This Winter

    Lots of unknowns in future of expanded system

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — Unemployment insurance dates back to 1935 and the same New Deal law that created Social Security. This year, however, unemployment benefits were radically expanded and repurposed as coronavirus relief.

    When it became clear in March 2020 that huge parts of the economy would have to shut down because of the pandemic, Congress turned the existing unemployment system into a conduit to help replace lost wages. State documents show that tens of millions of dollars flowed into the Outer Cape through this route.

    With winter approaching, though, the expanded unemployment insurance system has become more confusing than ever — and the late-starting summer season may cause some people to be locked out entirely.

    The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program that began in 1933 as a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. It provided manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands. Over nine years, 3 million young men participated in the CCC. Enrollees had to be unmarried, unemployed American males between 18 and 25 years old, 5 to 6.5 feet tall, over 107 lbs, and with at least six teeth. (Sources: National Archives, Records of the Civilian Conservation Corps, PBS American Experience image gallery)

    The original unemployment system was limited in various ways and covered only about half of the actual American workforce, according to Phineas Baxandall, a social insurance expert at the Mass. Budget and Policy Center. The expansion Congress passed during the shutdown made payments last longer, made them much more generous, and allowed more workers to qualify, including part-time workers, independent contractors, and the self-employed.

    Though many states struggled to get money into the hands of laid-off workers, Massachusetts was able to respond faster than most. By mid-April, when the expansion had largely taken effect, the system was putting $1.5 million a week into the hands of Outer Cape workers. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, created from scratch for various independent workers who hadn’t qualified in the past, came online in late April, and, by May, it was sending out money as well.

    The Independent reviewed data from the state about weekly unemployment claims (not including PUA claims). From Jan. 1 through the first week of September, the state’s unemployment system put $23.4 million into the four Outer Cape towns. Of that amount, $18 million came in during the 16 weeks in which Congress augmented the weekly benefit amount with an extra $600 per week. Those 16 weeks, from April 5 through July 25, saw $7 million come into Provincetown through the unemployment system, $5 million into Eastham, $3.4 million into Wellfleet, and $2.7 million into Truro.

    The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend these augmented benefits, but the Republican-controlled Senate refused. Since Gov. Charlie Baker’s reopening plan has led to most Outer Cape businesses reopening and most people returning to work, claims for the week of Sept. 5 (the last week included in the state data) are the lowest they have been all year.

    Winter is coming, however, and some restaurants and hotels are beginning to close. A long winter after a truncated summer season could spell trouble for some workers.

    A Tangle of Rules

    The unemployment system has been revised and expanded so many times that the rules seem to fold in on each other. Monica Halas, an unemployment law expert at Greater Boston Legal Services, is worried about one rule in particular.

    “If your work falls into one or two calendar quarters — say, the April-May-June and the July-August-September quarters — and then you also have seriously fluctuating wages, where some weeks are much higher than others, you can fall into a kind of hole in the formula and not be eligible for any unemployment benefits at all,” said Halas.

    In that situation, the formula for unemployment is based on the average weekly wage in only the higher-earning quarter. The income for the higher quarter is divided by 13 to make the average weekly wage, then divided by two to determine the weekly benefit amount (WBA). Income for the two quarters combined must be at least 30 times the WBA.

    Ordinarily, total income will exceed 30 times the WBA. But if you’ve only worked 15 weeks — or if your income is different each week and is almost all stacked up in one quarter, with hardly any in the other quarter — then you can run afoul of the formula and be completely ineligible.

    So, for instance, one person could earn $13,000 in the third quarter and $2,000 in the fourth quarter and be eligible, while a co-worker earns $14,000 in the third quarter and $1,000 in the fourth quarter and is not eligible.

    “I’ve worked with legislators to get this fixed for years — like, I can’t remember how many sessions now,” said Halas. “We’ve never been able to get it into the final bill. It’s hard to explain even to legislators.”

    This year, though, it’s not just a theoretical concern. Many businesses were allowed to open only in June. Some are closing at the end of September. An employee who worked two weeks in June and then through the end of September has a real chance of falling into this “hole” in the rules.

    Similarly, a worker at a “phase three” business who started work on July 6 and finishes around Columbus Day could easily fall into the “hole” as well.

    Winter Worries

    This is especially important because the unemployment system may be used again for coronavirus relief. It’s unlikely that an extension of expanded benefits will pass before the election, but early in 2021, whichever party has won power is likely to want to help the economy, and they might use unemployment insurance to do it.

    Policymakers will have plenty of options. The PUA program for independent workers ends completely on Dec. 26, said Halas. It was created from scratch in the March 27 CARES Act, and it covered a huge segment of workers who have never had unemployment protections before.

    PUA could expire in December and be resurrected by a new Congress in February. It could be replaced by something weaker — or by something stronger. In a year as strange as this one, and heading into a long nationwide winter, no one knows for sure what the rules will be next year.

    ECONOMY

    With Plenty of Headaches, Relief Money Is Flowing

    Three programs created a Bermuda Triangle of financial confusion

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The $2 trillion CARES Act turns three months old this week, and the relief programs it created have all had rough rollouts. The payroll loans, disaster loans, and unemployment insurance expansion were each a perfect storm of panic, confusion, and delay. Together, they were a sort of Bermuda Triangle of financial relief — disorienting and daunting, even to the most prepared.

    For the first time since the law was passed, however, all three programs seem to be on course. The disaster loans are finally being released, which is very big news for the small businesses that applied for them back in late March. The payroll loan terms were revised several times; they can now be used over the course of six months rather than two and still be forgiven. And the expanded unemployment system, which was rushed into place, is now circling back, documenting people’s prior income, and in many cases revising their weekly benefit upwards.

    CARES Act calculatorDisaster Loans Show Up

    Even before the CARES Act was passed on March 27, the Small Business Administration (SBA) set up the Economic Injury Disaster Loan, or EIDL, building it out of a pre-existing disaster loan program that normally kicks in after hurricanes or wildfires. The CARES Act put $10 billion into the program, but by that time nearly four million businesses had already applied.

    Each EIDL loan was originally supposed to equal six months of a business’s operating expenses, according to Jeannine Marshall, president of Coastal Community Capital. That’s a big loan, relative to a year’s budget, meant to give businesses real flexibility in an emergency. Four million loans averaging $100,000 each, however, would be $400 billion of loans. The $10 billion in the CARES Act was nowhere close to covering the demand, and throughout April and May, only a tiny number of EIDL loans trickled out of the SBA.

    Congress put more money into the program in late April, yet for weeks the disaster loans were nowhere to be found. Finally, around the beginning of June, the money started to flow.

    “The Massachusetts office of SBA has been approving 800 to 1,000 loans a week for the last three weeks,” said Pam Andersen, director of business and credit programs at the Community Development Partnership in Eastham. “I’ve heard from a lot of businesses that they’re finally getting something. I’ve also heard to check your spam filter, because some key messages from SBA could have gone there.”

    Andersen also noted that the portal to apply for a disaster loan, which has been closed since April 15, was reopened on June 15. If your business isn’t one of the four million that applied in March, there might be a second chance if you apply now.

    New PPP Loan Terms

    The Payroll Protection Program was always better funded than EIDL, but it was a confusing mess all the same. When Congress invented it in late March, it imagined a short disruption to the economy from the coronavirus — maybe a two- or four-week shutdown that would be all over by summertime. The loans were written to cover eight weeks of payroll, on the theory that the fully forgivable money would persuade employers to forego layoffs.

    The program was rushed, however, the rules were constantly changing, lots of layoffs happened anyway, the shutdowns dragged on through May, and many employees chose the generous unemployment benefits that were also provided in the CARES Act. Employers lobbied to be allowed to use the payroll loans after they reopen, instead of being required to maintain a full payroll while they were closed.

    In early June, Congress authorized those changes. Payroll loan money can now be used over the course of six months, and 40 percent of the total can be used on rent, utilities, and mortgage interest. That longer time horizon means when and how to use the money is no longer an immediate crisis. Under the old rules, this week would have been the last week to use all of it, and businesses would have been scrambling to build up their total payroll to 2019 levels to secure full loan forgiveness. That messy scene has been avoided, and businesses can now use the money gradually as they open back up to normal levels.

    UI: Read the Fine Print

    Many states are still struggling to get unemployment benefits to people who have been laid off in the pandemic. Massachusetts had one of the most generous unemployment systems prior to this crisis, and it was able to start getting money out to newly eligible people faster than most other states.

    Many of those newly eligible people filed under a temporary program called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA). This CARES Act program includes a minimum benefit amount — in Massachusetts, it’s $267 a week, with an extra $600 for every week between April 4 and July 25.

    When PUA first went live on April 20, it didn’t ask for income documentation, explained Monica Halas, an unemployment insurance expert at Greater Boston Legal Services. In order to speed the process, PUA just assigned the $267 number to nearly everyone. Now, the system is sending out emails, asking people to verify their 2019 income. It’s important to look for those messages and answer them, said Halas, because people who are currently getting the $267 could be getting more.

    “The state says the response is due Dec. 30, but people should respond as quickly as possible to get the higher rate,” Halas said. The extra money would be retroactive to the first week of the PUA claim. “A higher weekly benefit also means the person could have more part-time earnings before being bumped out of the program,” Halas added.

    The part-time earning rules are not stated consistently on the state’s website, Halas noted. “The Dept. of Unemployment Assistance is calculating it correctly, but they’re describing it incorrectly,” she said. “When it comes to part-time work, a person can earn 133 percent of their weekly benefit amount, minus one dollar, and still qualify for the extra $600 a week. I’m rock solid on that — you can print it. That’s for PUA and for the regular state unemployment program.”

    There is a “Part-time work benefits calculator” on DUA’s website, and it confirms Halas’s account. These rules on part-time work are especially relevant now, as businesses are reopening gradually with various restrictions on capacity.

    ECONOMY

    Small Businesses Seeking to Reopen Face Obstacles

    Problems remain with health rules, staffing, and government assistance

    By

    Arcadia
    Small business owner Jay Gurewitsch.

    PROVINCETOWN — Bringing a business back from a dead standstill is hard enough. But the problems surrounding that effort during the Covid epidemic are so fiendishly interwoven, they resemble the work of a novelist, not a virus.

    Businesses that seek to reopen face entirely new rules of operation, a timeline no one knows yet, and the possibility they might be closed again at a moment’s notice. Their customers may not be free to come here; if they are here, they may have no money; if they have money, they may be too afraid to spend it.

    If you got a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the Small Business Administration, “forgiveness” is uncertain. The SBA’s disaster loan program seems to have fallen off the Earth. New unemployment benefits could make it harder to hire staff. If employees are coming from overseas, their visas may be canceled. Even with a visa, they may still be unable to fly here. It would make an impressive Gordian knot if so many businesses weren’t trapped inside it.

    Missing Disaster Loans

    The SBA’s disaster loans were supposed to offer immediate relief, designed to keep cash flowing and accounts current. Instead, the program seems to have collapsed into an administrative black hole from which not even information can escape. The SBA has confirmed almost nothing about the program, and the formula for determining the loan amount is a mystery.

    Jeannine Marshall, president of Coastal Community Capital, was on a mid-March webinar with a disaster loan administrator who outlined how the loan amounts were supposed to work. “He described it then as: you take your gross annual revenue and subtract the cost of goods you had to buy,” she said. “Roughly speaking, everything that’s not your cost of goods is your operating expenses. Divide that number by two, and you have six months of operating expenses. That’s the formula for the loan — or at least it was.”

    Such loans could actually help keep a business solvent. The disaster loan program has had an additional $50 billion allocated to it — and because that allocation actually pays for the losses on the loans, it should, by Congressional rules, support seven times the amount of actual lending. The SBA is still staggering under the weight of 4 million disaster loan applications, but at some point, that money should start appearing.

    Payroll Confusion

    endless knots
    A display of mathematical endless knots. (Photo Matemateca IME/USP Rodrigo Tetsuo Artenton)

    The money that has appeared — PPP loans — may present other tangles. These loans are designed to pay for two months’ worth of payroll, at which point they convert into a forgiven loan, never to be repaid. This is a godsend for businesses that never stopped operating (such as this newspaper). For the businesses that have no payroll now because they laid off staff or hadn’t opened yet, it can be a surprise to learn that their payroll must start while they’re closed for the loan to be forgiven.

    Just around the corner is another problem: when it’s time to call employees back, many, especially those who rely on tips, will realize that super-enhanced unemployment pays more than working a venue with few customers. A conflict between employers who need loan forgiveness and employees reluctant to return could arise — and the real health risks of reopening complicate matters further.

    There are two possible solutions to this logjam.

    Employees can work part-time and still receive unemployment benefits. As long as an employee earns up to $1 less than her weekly benefit amount, that employee will still receive the balance of her weekly benefit and the whole extra $600 a week that Congress allocated in the CARES Act, said Monica Halas of Greater Boston Legal Services. The extra $600 a week continues through July 25, and for some businesses, reduced consumer demand and reduced staffing levels might continue as well.

    For businesses that can operate closer to full capacity, there is a little-known program called workshare unemployment.

    “The business owner has to initiate this plan, which is one reason it’s underutilized,” said Phineas Baxandall, an expert in social insurance at the Mass. Budget and Policy Center. “In workshare, if there are five employees, instead of laying one off, you put all five at 80 percent hours. All five take 20 percent of an unemployment check, which helps make up for the lost wages. For the duration of this year, the federal government is picking up the entire tab for those benefits.”

    That means these checks won’t count toward the employer’s next-year contribution to state unemployment insurance (U.I.). The employer is also paying less than full payroll, of course. And the employees each get the extra $600 a week until July 25, courtesy of the federal government. This benefit dwarfs the fractional check that each employee would normally get in workshare.

    In normal times, workshare is about saving on payroll while avoiding layoffs. But the feds have issued explicit guidance to employers ramping back up from a pandemic-caused closure: workshare may be used to gradually climb the ladder of increased demand. Employers put their employees into groups, and everyone in the group has to work the same fractional hours, between 40 and 90 percent of full time. The hours worked can increase — up to 90 percent of full-time — and employees will still receive the extra $600 a week, while costing the employer less than state-backed U.I.

    What About the Visas?

    In mid-March, U.S. embassies around the world suspended visa-related activities. The State Dept.’s website, however, shows that 556 J-1 student exchange visas had already been approved for the four Outer Cape towns before that happened.

    Patrick Patrick, owner of the Marine Specialties store in Provincetown, was contacted recently by a J-1 sponsor agency with a long questionnaire, asking about his plans for opening and for maintaining safety. Sponsor agencies have delayed their students’ arrivals in the U.S. — after all, there are no international flights to speak of, and most businesses are closed — but they haven’t canceled them.

    The H2-B program, however, is in a tighter spot. For that visa, businesses submit applications for a certain number of employees in difficult-to-fill positions, such as dishwashers and housekeepers. After going through a lottery in late February, applications representing 453 workers were approved in early March. Individual employees still have to be approved at U.S. embassies, however, and that step isn’t possible right now.

    If the embassies open in June, H2-Bs and J-1s might all be here by July. Many hotels and restaurants depend on these programs for staff. That means international air travel is just one more obstacle that some business owners have to consider before reopening.

     

    RELIEF

    The Cape’s Undocumented Workers on the Margins

    Most pay into the social safety net, but can’t benefit

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — The coronavirus-induced collapse of the economy has people everywhere reaching for lifelines, from unemployment to SBA loans to MassHealth. At the edge of this scene is a group that is often overlooked — the Cape’s undocumented population is not eligible for most of the programs that help people.

    Most of the undocumented people who live and work on the Cape entered the country on legal work visas and then stayed in the U.S. when their visas expired, according to Collin Mickle, an immigration lawyer and coordinator of the Immigrant Resource Center in Hyannis.

    That means the majority of the Cape’s undocumented population pays payroll and income taxes, Mickle added. “Employment visa holders are assigned Social Security numbers when they first arrive,” Mickle explained. Even after their visas expire, they can generally work under those numbers, he said. When they do, employer and employee both pay Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and state family and medical leave taxes.

    “In addition, most of the overstay immigrants we see are paying income taxes, state and federal,” said Mickle. The IRS knows about immigrants and their wages and expects them to file tax returns, but is not allowed to refer people to immigration enforcement. “They want people to pay — not to discourage them from paying,” Mickle said.

    Visa overstays may pay into the American social safety net, but that doesn’t mean they can receive its benefits.

    Unemployment Closed

    Congress has radically expanded the unemployment system. It is the principal economic support for people who have lost work because of the pandemic. Benefits were increased, and the pool of people who are eligible for them has nearly doubled. But that expanded UI system is closed to the undocumented.

    There are some classes of immigrants who can file for unemployment in Massachusetts, according to Monica Halas, an unemployment law expert at Greater Boston Legal Services. Green card holders and people with an employment authorization document (EAD) can file. Those eligible for an EAD include refugees, asylum seekers, and persons with Temporary Protected Status or deferred action agreements.

    Still, the most common work visas used on the Cape, the J-1 and the H2-B, never result in this kind of categorical employment authorization. Rather, those visas are tied to specific employers and industries, and convey much more limited privileges.

    Access to at least some relief could come for people in mixed-immigration-status families, if one person qualifies for unemployment. For example, the expanded UI system allows students who work part-time to apply.

    MassHealth No, but a Safety Net

    MassHealth provides comprehensive, nearly-free health care to about a quarter of the state’s residents. It’s part of the federal Medicaid program, it’s mostly paid for with federal funds, and federal rules bar undocumented people from the program. But undocumented residents of Massachusetts can enroll in the Health Safety Net and get at least some of the advantages of health insurance.

    “For Health Safety Net, you prove that you live in the state, and you prove your identity, but you don’t prove your immigration status,” said Kelly Hewitt, program coordinator for access to health care at the Community Action Committee of Cape Cod and the Islands. Health Safety Net is not insurance, and it doesn’t pay for everything that insurance does. But it pays for a lot of things, and it can also help avoid a tangled snarl of medical bills, appeals, and complex paperwork after a hospital trip. Hewitt says people should sign up for Health Safety Net before they wind up needing it.

    The Community Action Committtee does not report information about people to ICE. “It’s safe for anyone to call us,” said Caronanne Procaccini, a director there.

    Another form of relief could eventually find its way to the Cape’s undocumented population, after taking a circuitous route from Congress through the SBA to local lenders and then local employers. The Payroll Protection Program, which now amounts to $660 billion in forgivable loans, specifically encourages employers to bring back their entire staff. The application requires employers to certify that the employees they are including reside primarily in the U.S., but does not ask that they verify citizenship.

    Rules for the program have changed often, and are still changing. But Mickle does not think this rule will. “The SBA is totally overwhelmed by the complexity and volume of these loans,” he said. “Is it likely that they’re going to put some kind of new, above-and-beyond scrutiny on everyone’s payroll, now? Particularly when the IRS doesn’t apply that scrutiny? Even if they did want to, I don’t think the bandwidth is there.”

    The Payroll Protection Program was intended to keep people employed. For the visa overstays who live on the edge in our economy, being employed has always been the only reliable plan.

     

    DISASTER HELP

    How Workers and Businesses Can Find Relief

    Rescue funds include loans and expanded unemployment benefits

    By

    PROVINCETOWN — More than $600 billion of the $2 trillion federal financial rescue package that became law last week will go to beefing up unemployment benefits and small business loans and grants.

    For those who are already covered by unemployment insurance, the biggest change will be to the size of their check. In most cases, it will more than double. The average benefit paid in Massachusetts is around $523 a week; the stimulus bill adds $600 a week to that for four months and extends benefits by 13 weeks.

    Congress has now expanded eligibility to include the self-employed, gig workers, contractors, part-time workers, and even people who have never worked, such as recent high school graduates. This new group will receive half the statewide average benefit, or about $260 a week, as well as the bonus — $600 more a week for four months (April through July).

    “You have to self-certify that you are cut off from work because of the virus,” said Phineas Baxandall, senior analyst at the Mass. Budget and Policy Center. “It could be that you have to care for someone. It could be that you have to care for a child who would be in school.” He noted that the program is retroactive to Jan. 27.

    Work-search requirements are also being adjusted. Staying in contact with your employer and being available to come back to work when the emergency passes will in many cases be enough.

    Your legal status can determine whether you’ll be left out in the cold. “Green-card holders can also receive unemployment benefits,” said Baxandall. “Theoretically, people with legal work authorizations such as an H1-B would be eligible, too. But people who don’t have any formal work status are not eligible for any of these programs.”

    Nearly $400 billion in loans will become available through the Small Business Administration. Congress defines small businesses as having up to 500 employees — which means almost every business on the Outer Cape.

    There are three major kinds of loans, said Ann Robinson, chief program officer at the Community Development Partnership in Eastham.

    “Economic Injury Disaster Loans come directly from the SBA,” said Robinson. “There’s also an Emergency Economic Injury Grant that you can get once you’re approved for the loan. The grant is for $10,000, and it appears to be almost immediate.” She noted that loans are capped at $2 million, with payments deferred for up to four years, and can be used for normal business expenses — rent, utilities, payroll, etc.

    “You have to have already been a business since before Jan. 31 — no new businesses for this program — and it’s structured as a loan that you eventually repay.”

    Payment Protection Program (PPP) loans are also available. “These loans can be used for payroll, rent, utilities, and interest on a mortgage,” Robinson said, and they can be forgiven at the end of the year. It’s also possible to convert a larger disaster loan into a PPP loan, to take advantage of the program’s generous forgivability clauses, Robinson added. Whatever has not been forgiven at the end of a year converts into a 10-year loan at 4 percent interest.

    Finally, there are are traditional 7(a) and 504 SBA loans of up to $5 million that banks help to write. “The 7(a)s and 504s are for purchasing equipment, real estate, inventory,” said Robinson. “What’s different now is they’re offering six months of debt relief. That applies to existing loans and brand-new loans.”

    Help navigating these programs is likely to be a big challenge. “Honestly, talking to your loan officer at your bank might make the most sense,” Robinson said. “In normal times, they might not get involved — but these are not normal times!”

     

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