Admin: Low-income jobless aid fix requires change in law
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Downtown Worcester
After lawmakers urged the executive branch to intervene to help low-income workers who fell short of accessing additional aid, the Baker administration said that it cannot implement the changes sought without federal and state legislative action.
More than 110 Massachusetts legislators asked the administration to partner with them to raise the minimum level of unemployment benefits, warning that constituents who qualify for an amount smaller than $100 per week were blocked from receiving up to $1,800 through the federal Lost Wages Assistance program.
However, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said late Monday that any update to the minimum benefit amount would need to come as a result of a change to statute. That requirement prevents the Department of Unemployment Assistance from acting administratively, it said.
The office also said the LWA program ended, so new federal funds would need to become available to extend to any Massachusetts claimants who did not already qualify.
Lawmakers had cited action by governors in Rhode Island and New Hampshire to temporarily raise the unemployment benefit floor to $100 per week as a way to ensure all claimants also qualified for the additional federal support.
Over its six-week participation in LWA, Massachusetts directed more than $1.3 billion in federal dollars to 695,000 claimants, supplementing their unemployment benefits with an additional $300 per week.
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