Why 16K people applying for unemployment still haven’t been approved for $300 checks
If you’re still waiting on your South Carolina lost wages assistance benefits, check your application to make sure you filled out the security questions.
More than three weeks after the program went live on the Department of Employment and Workforce website, some applicants have not received their benefits because they failed to complete required identity verification measures, the agency said. But it’s not too late to change that.
Approximately 16,000 applicants to the Lost Wages Assistance program — which provides $300 in retroactive weekly unemployment benefits for the weeks ending between Aug. 1 and Sept. 5 — have not passed DEW’s security questions or provided the department with a copy of their ID, the agency announced in a press release Wednesday.
On Sept. 18, a few days before it launched the additional benefits program, DEW added security measures to the enrollment portal, citing the growing threat of fraudulent claims. But a day after the launch, DEW temporarily suspended an identity-proofing feature after claimants said they received unusual responses while filling out security questions.
The security questions designed to block out fraudsters apparently tripped up some applicants, who expressed frustration with the verification process in the comments section of DEW’s Facebook page.
According to the agency, about 20% of the claimants who have completed the verification process so far have not passed the security measure, mostly because they timed out of or quit the session. Only 9%, the press release states, actually answered questions wrong — they have two chances to get them right.
Of those who didn’t pass the security measure, 55% — or 16,000 — haven’t provided DEW with documentation of their identity, DEW stated. So they have been flagged as potentially fraudulent.
But before the LWA funding, which is supplied by a Federal Emergency Management grant, runs out, the claimants can still respond to DEW’s requests for documentation to receive their payments.
So far, DEW has paid out $246 million to 214,075 people just in lost wages assistance benefits. The program was intended as a replacement for the CARES Act’s $600 federal pandemic unemployment compensation program, but will end in December or earlier, depending on when funds run out.
To be eligible, claimants must already qualify for $100 in unemployment benefits and have lost work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The unemployment rate in South Carolina was 6.3% in August, as weekly claims continue on a downward slope across the state.
Gordon Tuthill, of Fort Mill, received five weeks of lost wages assistance last week after he was asked to provide extra identification verification. He’d been out of work since April after having to quit his job because he was immuno-compromised.
He said he had answered the security questions to the best of his ability and does not know what happened that led him to receive a “notice of pending.”
He called the governor’s office to help resolve his issues.
He’s called the governor’s office so many times, “They know who I am. I don’t even have to give them my name.”
Tuthill said people are still having problems with the enrollment portal, as DEW struggles to assist the tens of thousands of claimants calling each week.
“We’re stuck,” he said. “People are still stuck.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Why 16K people applying for unemployment still haven’t been approved for $300 checks."
