California and New York will start paying out an extra $300 a week in unemployment benefits soon, but other states could take weeks
- President Donald Trump signed the $900 billion bipartisan coronavirus relief package on December 27.
- The relief package includes $300 in weekly federal unemployment payments.
- California and New York are among the states starting payments, while others might be delayed to mid-January or later.
California, New York, Arizona, and Rhode Island will be the first states to start paying an additional $300 in weekly unemployment benefits that were part of the federal coronavirus relief package, CNBC reported. Over 10 million people are still unemployed, while millions are at risk of eviction or food insecurity.
State labor agencies say that the four states will start handing out payments this week, to be followed by Connecticut and Washington by the middle of the month, according to CNBC. Some Californians received the first payment on January 3. New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced on December 29 that state residents would begin seeing payments the first week of January.
The $300 in federal money comes on top of already-existing state unemployment benefits and were enacted through March 14.
President Trump signed the $900 billion relief package on December 27, which included $300 in additional weekly unemployment and $600 stimulus checks, after he had earlier called the rescue package "a disgrace." About 14 million Americans temporarily lost benefits, because the payments are not retroactive.
The $2 trillion CARES Act in March had a similar provision, adding $600 weekly to state unemployment benefits. It expired in July. In August, President Trump signed an executive order that temporarily continued some $300-per-week payments, though those benefits have also since run out.
See what else is in the stimulus here.