Resources

Unemployment Details

The federal government is allowing new options for states to amend their laws to provide unemployment insurance benefits related to COVID-19. For example, federal law allows states to pay benefits when:

  • An employer temporarily ceases operations due to COVID-19, preventing employees from coming to work;

  • An individual is quarantined with the expectation of returning to work after the quarantine is over; and

  • An individual leaves employment due to a risk of exposure or infection or to care for a family member.

March 30 update: New federal law allows states to extend benefits to self-employed and gig workers, and to provide an extra $600 per week as well as an additional 13 weeks of benefits. Learn more from these FAQs about Unemployment Benefits Finder or find the complete guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor.

To apply for unemployment benefits in the state of Utah visit: https://jobs.utah.gov/ui/home/initialclaims and make a profile. You will need your driver's license, social security number, and employment information for the last 18 months on hand.This application takes about 30 minutes to complete and will automatically time out if inactive for more than 20 minutes. Correspondences and requests for additional information will be sent to you through the profile you set up. It is important that you check this profile regularly in order to reduce the delay of receiving this benefit. You are also responsible for filing weekly unemployment claims which can be done on your profile. Failure to file these weekly claims will result in delay or denial of disbursement.

April 15th Update: There are now two different unemployment insurance programs, and it's important that the people who have been impacted by COVID-19 and are unemployed apply through the right program.

Traditional Unemployment, he said, is for workers who have been laid off or furloughed, or had their hours reduced.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (part of the national CARES Act legislation) expands some unemployment benefits to workers who are not traditionally eligible for unemployment insurance, like the self-employed or gig economy workers. 

More information and applications for both programs are available at jobs.utah.gov/covid19. There is also an "Am I Eligible?" button on the page that Utahns can use to determine to which program they should apply. If you push the button and it shows that you are ineligible, or zero dollars, then Pandemic Unemployment Assistance is the correct application. Individuals who qualify for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance will also receive the additional $600 a week allotted for unemployed Americans under the CARES Act.

Funding for Former Service Industry Employees

Are you a restaurant or bar worker, delivery driver, or Uber/Lyft driver who has been affected by coronavirus and the economic downturn? One Fair Wage Emergency Fund is offering grants for service employees in tipped industries. OFW will be giving out cash gifts of $213.00 to verified workers — choosing that amount because $2.13 is the current federal sub-minimum wage. Tipped workers and other service workers who are seeing their customers decline, or those forced to quarantine at home and not get paid, need immediate support. OFW is also accepting donations - your generosity can immediately help a service worker and their family not slip even further into poverty during this crisis.

 

Hospitality workers are facing unprecedented hardships, but Another Round Another Rally is here to help. If you are a chef, server, bartender, dishwasher, sommelier, manager or someone who holds any other type of hospitality role, Another Round Another Rally can lend a hand. They’re offering $500 relief grants for hospitality workers who lost their jobs or had their hours slashed in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. They’re also collecting donations from community members willing to help their hospitality-industry friends and neighbors stay afloat in this time of uncertainty.

Stimulus Check Details

The US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced that distribution of economic impact payments will begin in the next three weeks (announced on 3/30/2020) and will be distributed automatically, with no action required for most people.

Tax filers with adjusted gross income up to $75,000 for individuals and up to $150,000 for married couples filing joint returns will receive the full payment. For filers with income above those amounts, the payment amount is reduced by $5 for each $100 above the $75,000/$150,000 thresholds. Single filers with income exceeding $99,000 and $198,000 for joint filers with no children are not eligible.

Eligible taxpayers who filed tax returns for either 2019 or 2018 will automatically receive an economic impact payment of up to $1,200 for individuals or $2,400 for married couples and up to $500 for each qualifying child.

The vast majority of people do not need to take any action. The IRS will calculate and automatically send the economic impact payment to those eligible. For people who have already filed their 2019 tax returns, the IRS will use this information to calculate the payment amount. For those who have not yet filed their return for 2019, the IRS will use information from their 2018 tax filing to calculate the payment. The economic impact payment will be deposited directly into the same banking account reflected on the return filed.

In the coming weeks, Treasury plans to develop a web-based portal for individuals to provide their banking information to the IRS online, so that individuals can receive payments immediately as opposed to checks in the mail.

The IRS will post all key information on IRS.gov/coronavirus as soon as it becomes available.

Health Insurance Assistance

Millions of people have lost jobs and often the health coverage that came with those jobs. More still have had their work hours reduced or have received drastic pay cuts, so monthly premiums that may have been manageable before are now out of reach.

If you got laid off and had insurance through your job you might be able to keep the same health plan under federal rules known as COBRA — if you worked for an employer with 20 employees or more. Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, says one advantage of COBRA is that "it provides the most continuity of coverage, because you stay in exactly the same plan you were in when you were employed — same network of doctors and hospitals, same deductible — everything is identical." But this continuation of your current health coverage can be quite expensive because, at least under normal circumstances, you would have to pay the full monthly premium, without your employer chipping in to make it more affordable. Your insurer is required to notify you if you have the COBRA option, and you have 60 days to elect to take it.

The next place to look is the insurance exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act. Losing health insurance that you got through your job is considered a "qualifying event" to enroll in a plan on all the health insurance exchanges. That means you can go to Healthcare.gov or your state-run exchange and shop for a new plan. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a handy subsidy calculator so you can see what you might pay in premiums for these plans — remember that your unemployment benefits count as income.

If your income has been wiped out with the lost job, you should also check to see whether you qualify for Medicaid, the national health insurance program for low-income people that's jointly funded by federal and state governments. Medicaid enrollment takes place year-round and is based on monthly income, not annual income.

Rent or Mortgage Assistance

There is a good chance you can delay your mortgage payments if the outbreak has left you short of money.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has instructed mortgage servicers to allow borrowers whose mortgages are owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac to delay payments. This forbearance program allows for a mortgage payment to be suspended for up to 12 months due to hardship caused by the coronavirus.

Federal housing officials have also announced a nationwide eviction and foreclosure moratorium for borrowers of Fannie or Freddie mortgages, or borrowers whose loans are backed by the Federal Housing Administration — so-called F.H.A. loans. This includes foreclosures that are already in progress. These mortgages make up about 70 percent of all outstanding home loans, according to the House Financial Services committee.

To find out if Fannie or Freddie own your mortgage, you can search your address on this federal government site.

A coalition of mortgage industry groups representing banks, finance companies and others has said it will also grant payment suspensions of at least three months — and up to 12 months — to homeowners whose loans are not owned by Fannie or Freddie, but they have said their effort requires a federal backstop.

But you can’t just stop paying your bills!

You need to call your lender. If you're a homeowner, for example, you call the company that you normally send your mortgage check to every month. Tell the representative that you are experiencing financial hardship because of the coronavirus and you need to make reduced payments or skip payments and be placed into what is called a forbearance plan. Some lenders will let you do this online because call wait times can be long.

But be sure to ask what the options are for you when this forbearance period ends. You will need to make those missed payments. The best option for most people will probably be to simply extend the term of the loan by the number of months that you skipped payments while in forbearance.

If you rent, the best national resource we have found so far is the search-by-state function on Justshelter.org. This offers information on local organizations that can provide advice to renters in distress. Just Shelter’s founders are Matthew Desmond, the author of the book “Evicted,” and Tessa Lowinske Desmond. Mr. Desmond is also the founder of Eviction Lab; it is publishing a list of local and regional actions to pause evictions of renters.

The emergency stimulus bill put a temporary, nationwide eviction moratorium in place for any renters whose landlords have mortgages backed or owned by Fannie, Freddie or the F.H.A. This will last through the end of July, and landlords can’t charge any fees or penalties for nonpayment of rent either. The moratorium applies only to eviction for nonpayment; tenants can still be evicted for other reasons.

Regulators have also told landlords whose own mortgages are owned by Fannie or Freddie that they too can use forbearance, just as long as they do not evict tenants after they pause their mortgage payments. The challenge for renters is figuring out whether their landlord has such a mortgage. This information sometimes appears if you look up the address in the National Housing Preservation Database.

If the landlord’s mortgage is not in forbearance, renters who skip payments could be risking eviction if there has not been a local prohibition.

Student Loan Assistance

If you have federal student loans, you should automatically receive some relief. Borrowers will be placed in a so-called administrative forbearance, which allows you to temporarily stop making payments from March 13 until September 30.

No interest will accrue during the forbearance period. Interest you accrued before the period began will also not be rolled into your loan principal, according to a Department of Education spokeswoman.

Borrowers who want to continue making loan payments are welcome to do so. You may end up paying the balance down faster if the full amount of your payment can be applied to your loan’s principal.

Keep in mind that this relief applies only to federal student loans owned by the Education Department. Loans issued through state agencies and others, including big private lenders like Sallie Mae, are not covered. Other loans not covered include the majority of Federal Family Education Loans, which are mostly held by commercial lenders, and school-held Perkins loans.

Some private lenders are offering relief programs. Sallie Mae reported that it was offering suspension of payment for up to three months, with no damage to a borrower’s credit. Another, Navient, made an identical offer for “qualified” borrowers; a spokesman said you just need to contact the company and explain how your financial situation had changed. A third big private lender, Wells Fargo, says it will offer help, but a spokesman said the bank would not commit to a set number of months or any other specifics.

If you have more questions, check out the Education Department’s Q&A here. It addresses what to do if you have auto-debit payments (they’re suspended during this period), are trying to rehabilitate a defaulted loan, and more.

To see if your loans are eligible for this temporary pause, try contacting your loan servicer — the company where you send monthly payments — online or by phone. If you do not know who your servicer is or how to contact it, go to StudentAid.gov/login or call 1-800-4-FED-AID

Utility Bills Assistance

Some utility providers are offering to stop cutting people’s services off for nonpayment. A number of large internet companies have agreed to not terminate residential or small business customers who cannot pay their bills: AT&T, Comcast, RCN, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. A full list of companies is available on the Federal Communications Commission site.

It is not yet clear whether companies want customers to call to invoke this relief and provide proof or whether they will offer it automatically to everyone. People who need help should call their service providers and ask.

Job Opportunities

Seasonal Watershed Worker

SLC Watershed is hiring summer seasonal team members.  Teams of workers will be assigned their own vehicle in order to comply with social distancing guidelines.  SLC Watershed is looking to fill these positions quickly and will begin the first round of interviews the week of May 25th. You can find out additional information about the job requirements and access the online application by clicking on this link: Seasonal Watershed Worker.