Week. But here in california, we have filed a more than 7 million claims for unemployment that happened since the pandemic began and paid out just last week alone 3. 7 billion in Unemployment Benefits and thats more than 3 billion more than the worst week of the last great recession. So as you can see, there is a massive demand for this type of until assistance. So is the volume that you are getting, you are having the process going down at all . You know, the volume continues to be quite high. We are still getting a couple hundred,000 claims each week. However, what we are able to to do is we are now able to expand our capacity. As you know when this hit, it was like an overnight perfect storm. Right. So it was hitting at a time of record low up employment. We have low staffing, low funding. Now we have more funding. We are in a mass expedited hiring effort, where we have hired or at least extended considerable job offers to more than 4,300 people to come on board and help us here at the ebb. So that capacity is growing quickly. Thats really helping in our ability to serve people. All those people who are in need. Okay. I am seeing a lot of questions flying in about extensions, specifically that 600 i promise we will get to in a little bit. I want to explore what other help is coming. I want to start with access questions. Is there a way to actually speak to someone . A viewer says theyve tried every day for a month from 8 00 to 12 00 and have yet to speak to anybody. You know, its so heart breaking for to us hear that. We dont want to see people frustrated trying to get through the call center. Were getting a lot of massive redials. I think some people are using a system to automatically redial and redial that is congesting the system. So what we are doing is attacking it in a couple different ways. Number one, you can get assistance through self service type of means and we want people to know that thats there for them. Sometimes and in most cases, people dont have to talk to a representative. They can get their claim filed, a payment made. Some of the most common questions answered through a number of other different ways and hopefully as we get more people on the phone lines, more staff here combined with as many people possible using self serve, that way, those people actually have to talk to a representative. Theyll have a much easier time getting through. We have viewer complaints when they do reach somebody by phone the specialist is often ill prepared to answer their questions. Why do you think thats happening . You know, as part of this what we had to do is expand very, very rapidly with this avalanche of demand that hit us overnight so in order to do so, we did go ahead and contact for some vendor assistance with call center trained staff, put them through some expedited training on Unemployment Insurance to help us get some assistance out there for people as we then started getting someone to start hiring. So its quite possible, some folks, some of these vendor staff that came on board werent as familiar with a lot of the information. Buff we continue to address that with extended training. All of these different people are hiring in and we are doing a lot of new technology as well to help them with that knowledge and maintain that knowledge and assist people even more quickly and in an expedited way. So we continue to work on it. Its evolving daily. Okay. I want to get back in a little bit to if there is a best number to call that kind of thing. But i want to get to what additional help may be coming. Because those questions are coming if. The 600 additional weekly payments under the c. A. R. E. S. Act is set to expire as we all know july 25th. So what happens after that . Well, after that, you are not authorized to pay any additional 600 on top of any weekly benefit amount, someone might be eligible to receive. So, obviously, there is a lot of sessions in congress right now. Are they going to extend that . We dont have any word on that. It just means after the weekend being july 25th, well have more information for example next week. But at that point in time, we cannot add on an additional 600. It will be your weekly benefit you are eligible to receive on its own. Okay. Depending on when you started getting your regular up employment benefits, which run 26 weeks, i mean, at this point, lets say you are nearing the end of that when the pandemic happened and then you know its been 13 weeks, were right about the time when people are starting to phase, some people are getting nothing right now, right, or theyre about close to it . You know, ive got to tell you, i understand why so many people are confused about these extensions and so many of the different provision the c. A. R. E. S. Act provided for people. It is really a truly complicated web. So generally speaking, heres how it works. Right now, if you exhaust your regular claim of 26 weeks, yes, if are you eligible, we can move into a pandemic emergency Unemployment Compensation 13week extension, so that gives you some additional weeks. What we are doing now is we are as of july 1st, we are sweeping our system daily, identifying those out of their peu, puc extension, those 13 weeks and as they do so, we will be sending out notifications to those individuals telling them whether or not we can file a new fed ed extension for them. That is now a new additional 20 weeks of benefits, or if we cant, we will let you know we will try to get you into a pandemic unemployment assistance claim or get you back to one if you already had one started. Our whole goal is to minimize any gap as long as you remain eligible to receive those monies. Right. So none of that is automatic, right . What what do people need to do . For the most part, we will get you into that next claim automatically if you are eligible. You will receive notice from us. We are trying to make this as easy as possible like all claims, are you able to certify every two weeks to your eligible, answer those bake questions telling us you are unemployed no get your next benefit payment. Watch for an update online and watch your mail for the latest notification. All right. So right now, congress is discussing the heroes act. If that passes what does that mean . What do people get, how many more weeks . You know, we dont know. It is still up for grabs. Weve got a lot of questions being sent to us from some of the lawmakers and u. S. Dol, department of labor. We just dont know what it means yet. As soon as we do get any word and anything becomes finalized, we will be giving that information out to everybody as quickly as possible. What about the state . I read something ability sb811, millions of californians can get more weeks of benefits as a part of that deal Governor Newsom struck with lawmakers. Can you tell us how that would work and kick in . Im not familiar with any sb bill. What i can tell you what the bug bill did for us, is it helped us meet federal trigger standard on what our unemployment figure looks like. It maximizes the federal funding support. So instead of this fed ed extension, additional weeks, instead of that being a normal 13 weeks and split in terms of a cost between half of the federal government and half from state employers, it now means that we can make that extension 20 weeks and we can get 100 federal funding for those benefits, thereby, providing some tax relief to state employers, specifically the taxrelated ones and given the reimbursement employers can get 50 of those costs back. So really it was a winwin type of situation. All right. Lori, i want to pull in viewer questions. Linda rossi wants to know f. I end up working the census, will i get an extension of benefits after that is done if i need them . It all depends whether you had a claim before you started that work or not. W have to have a little more specifics on that case. But basically what were asking when you refile for unemployment, we have to check how much in wages did you have in your last 18 month employment history. If there was enough wages there to support a claim, well file that claim for you. Every two weeks you have to certify your eligibility to us. If have you any earnings in that twoweek period, have you as to report that. We look at that to see if there is enough in wages there that might have to be deducted from any benefit payment you would be eligible to receive. We will take a short break on the air. You can continue to im alex trebek here to tell you about the Colonial Penn program. If youre age 5085 and looking to buy Life Insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. The three what . The three ps . What are the three ps . The three ps of Life Insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. A price you can afford, a price that cant increase, and a price that fits your budget. Im 54 and i was a smoker but quit. Alex, whats my price . You can get coverage for 9. 95 a month. Im 65, retired, and take medications. Whats my price . Also 9. 95 a month. I just turned 80 and im on a fixed income. Whats my price . 9. 95 a month for you, too. If youre age 50 to 85, call now about the number one most popular whole Life Insurance plan available through the Colonial Penn program. It has an affordable rate starting at 9. 95 a month. That ls you cannot be turned down because of your health. No medical exam, no Health Questions. Your acceptance is guaranteed, and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. And with this plan, you can pick your payment date, so you can time your premium due date to work with your budget. Options start at 9. 95 a month, plus, you get a 30day money back guarantee. So call now for free information. And youll also get this free beneficiary planner, and its yours just for calling. So call now. Frustration in a difficult time. What i can tell you, is we are having a difficult time. Save is that thought. We will take it back on the air. We are back with the spokesperson for ebb. We never left the conversation open our live streams. I want to ask you this. We do have viewer complaints, actually im going to this different one. Because theyve reported that callbacks theyre getting from specialists. Some of the numbers look really strange, like theyre private numbers. Are those legitimate. You do have claim specialists using their own cell phones working from home . You know, that was a part of the perfect storm of this pandemic response. We had to get 8,000 people out in a telework scenario. So, yes, we do have claimants, especially if you have a determination interview set up. We need to get some more information from you. It could be coming from a phone number and a government source. It could come up as blocked on some peoples phones. But we did indicate something on that in our news release last week. Yes, please be available for those calls at that designated time we tell you. The person will know, tell you what they are calling ability, your ebb Customer Account number is. Edie asked for proof of i. D. Claimants must photo copy their documents and send them in. Shouldnt the website be able to accept that data instead of going by snail ma ill . You know, there is a lot to do, high level wish lists we have here. Were going through them as quickly as we can. We made a number of different enhancements and continue to do so. One of them we hope to have operational some time this summer is the ability to upload documents. There is only so much we can add to this system at any one time with all the programing required. But this one is being taken care of and hopefully it will be ready for launch sometime over the next several weeks. All right. A lot of people hope so look. How much money . How many millions have been spent on website modern zaition . We know that is a priority. When is it going to get there where we have a system that meets todays needs at todays speed . You know, this has been a very long process for us. And i can tell you that before the last rate recession, at the time we only got authorized to replace about a quarter of the whole Unemployment Insurance available through online access. Its so massive and so expensive, thats what got approved so its kind of like a band aided approach we are working with. I can tell you in the last recession, we did no have our viewer Online System we have today. It has been a massive work source for us. Its been the only way we can automatically process large volumes of claims and keep up with this massive demand. We have gone ahead and processed 7. 5 million claims in a matter of four months. That is double we did in the entire worst year of the great recession. So thankfully we have that ui Online System. Right now we are working on a modernized system that will incorporate our Disability Insurance and paid Family Leave Insurance Program and a much more modernized and flexible type system. We are getting ready who to work that here pretty quickly. Julie wants to know. I completed by portion of disability claim online. My doctor is not able to complete their portion online. I ordered a hard copy. Can you still send in a hard copy . If so, do i have to complete my portion again . You know, id have to look at the specifics of that particular claim. Its good to hear about Disability Insurance. It does require something from you and something from your physician that authorizes that as a medical certification as to that illnesses or injury or what have you associated with that claim. So, yeah, we do have to get something from a doctor. Sometimes you can work with your physician in terms of how that information can get into us here at the ebb. Lori, a lot of people are commenting with similar stories to this one, my payments have been pending nine weeks. I called hundreds of times and somebody told me a specialist would call me back in threetofive days. That was four weeks ago. I emailed and keeping my account is pending and somebody will contact me. What more can i do . You know, i understand, that is extraordinarily frustrating. Its an unfortunate situation that pending typically means we have to have staff manually look at the circumstances of that claim. Its a little bit more complexity associated with it. We cant automatically get that processed. Most of the time it has something to do with the way in which the questionsp answered on your certification form. So i think what we have done is weve redirected hundreds of staff working these manual work queues. Weve added automation to those work queues so we can more expeditiously get through them. Typically pending means you wrent qualified, there was some kind of eligibility issue. Can i tell you there are two major things that seem to be Holding People up unnecessarily. So what we have done is weve added into our ui online application, were adding in right onto the application, the certification to stop telling you, heres what we mean during this covid time on questions number one and two. Both of them have to do with whether or not you are available to work if called upon. Question one, were you too sick or injured to work . Question two, were you available to accept work . And you really knead to make sure you let us know, yes, are you available to go back to work if called upon. You know, obviously, that itself only reason thats preventing you from working, through know fault of your own. You will not get penalized for that we want you to make sure, look for those tips in there, in our unemployment step by step guide on our website how to guide you through process of certifying. Hopefully, these additional tips will help people. You are giving great indepth answers. Lets try to rapid fire a few coming up. If you quit your job because you dont feel its safe, can you still collect unemployment . It all demands on what we call suitable work. If a job happens to meet your particular background, occupational skill level, its considered safe by what the employer is offering you, you may not be eligible to collect Unemployment Benefits if it doesnt meet suitable work. It really all depends on we want you to check out our website for more information. Karen cross wants to know in taxes are taken out of that 600 puc payment . Unfortunately, we cannot keep it up for you. But it is something somebody should be prepared to do. All right. To stop benefits, do you stop certifying . I tried emailing, no response. All you have to do is stop certifying. A claim is good for a year. Some people may start a claim, go back to work for a while, return to it. To any balance left there. All you have to do is reopen your claim later. I cannot get into an account. It says my email already exists. Three years ago i applied for disability. Is is that why . It could be. You know, because we come in, we have to check to make sure are you who you say you are. We have to check all the information are you giving us to match with other information we have about you. That could be an issue. Again that is something you can go ahead and get some further informatin for on our website, how you can go through asking ebb to get information or go through that help line we were talking about earlier. If i have two jobs and lost hours at both, can i open a claim for both jobs . If so, how . You know, it also depends, too, on are those w2 wages . In other words, were they both employers or was some a self employment claim . So, we have to look at how much did you have in your employer wages and whether or not thats enough to get you a regular ui claim and if not, if all you have is self employment wages, that itself what we have to look at to get you a pandemic unemployment assistance claim. All right. Timothy has a situation id like to know if thats true or not. He said if you are getting benefits, try not to get injured, because if you get injured and have to go on disability, then you can no longer get that extra 600. Is that right . Well, the long and short of it is, if you are injured and sick and unavailable for work, you are required to be available to work as soon as you are called upon, there is a job that you have to return to your job, or there is a good job offer that makes suitable work options for you. So you have to be available. If you are not available, you could be disqualified from getting Unemployment Benefits. If you are not getting Unemployment Benefits, there is nothing to tack on that extra 600 to. We will take a short brake on you could be available. Coming back onair. Okay. All right. We are back with lori leavy, spokesperson for california edd answering your questions about getting assistance. Real quickly, we started to talk about this over on the live streams during break, people are still asking, what is happening now . Is my 600 going to stop coming after july 25 senateelect. That is what we are required to do. That money comes to us from the next and it sub sets the week ending july 25ing. There is no more 600 to pay anybody. We are watching congress very closely. Anything occurs there in terms of a development, well certainly let everybody know. What are some other avenues for assistance that people can consider to say, hey, can i qualify for this instead . Really, all we can provide for you here is that if you are unemployed through no fall of your own through this whole el covid pandemic, we have a regular program for the pandemic unemployment assistance program, mainly for those who are selfemployed Business Owners and independent contractors and so forth. So those are the two offers we have. We can certainly look at your employment history, wage information to see which one you qualify for. Heres a question. I work full time in a salon and a second job. My salon had to shut down. Im looking at my second job as an essential worker. Does the qualify me for edd and back pay . Again, id have to look at the particular circumstance, whether those wages and independent contractor wages, were they employee wages . That all depends. I would encourage someone to apply for benefits and be ready to give us the various information about both jobs what kind of wages those are. We can collect that information to see if you could qualify for a regular ui claim or a pandemic unemployment assistance claim. How about this one . How can i correct the dates on a week i just cert fade for yesterday. I didnt realize the dates. I guess they got it wrong and need to report my hours worked. You know, there is certainly information that you can provide to us through our ask edd function. If its some information that was on a biweekly certification, im not quite sure what she is alluding to there. If its something on your biweekly certification, you can certainly provide it to us or through your ui account and so forth and you will get into your next biweekly payment and certification. All right. Robin wants to know, should we reapply to reboot the pending status since nobody has ever contacted me . Would you had advise that or not . I would not advise that that simply congests the system ap confuses things. I would say if you have a particular question, look for your updates on the ui account or certainly through the mail. You should be hearing from us to be able clear up any kind of pending status. Okay. Maggie wants to know, what is the difference between pui and puc . Pui, and puc. I dont know what the pui would be. There is tamps between the 600 puc stimulus maimt payment and the 13 week extension which is the peuc. All these things came to us from the federal c. A. R. E. S. Act. I know they are definitely confusing to people. The 600 federal stimulus payment is set to end in july. We talked about that the puc extension is set to end at the end of the year. I got to ask you. Given the situation and this commonality of people saying they simply cant get through and youve already put out the call to hire more people. Is there anything more you can do on your end to really get the process moving faster for people . It truly is a combination. I mean, things are just well off the charts more than anything weve ever seen in the worst of recessions. So we really are at this point we could use peoples help, help us help you. And for that situation, yes, were expanding capacity very, very quickly. With reusing automation, getting more staff. We continue to do that on a daily basis einvolving all the time. If you can help us out using those Self Service Tools as much as possible. Go to those. Use those on the website. We are featuring top faqs we hear from customers every week on our website. Use that wherever possible. It will reduce the call center and easier for people to get through who have to talk to somebody. Always great talking to you. We will go over to your live how about poor fred wilson . What a shame. So soon after retiring. I hear his wife needed help with the funeral expenses. Thats ridiculous he had social security. When my brother died, his wife received a check from social security, all right for 255 the funeral costs were well over 8,000. How on earth did she pay for it . Fortunately, my brother bought additional Life Insurance before he retired. Whew i bet that cost a pretty penny, huh . Not with Colonial Penn. Coverage options start at just 9. 95 a month. Less than 35 cents a day. I have it myself. We both do. Both of you . Thats right. Neither of us had to answer any Health Questions or take a physical exam. In fact, no one our age can be turned down. For any health reason. No one . No one . Nope. Hm. Is this a plan that offers a lot of protection at first, and then reduces it little by little each year . No ive had this coverage for years. My benefit never decreases as i get older. Your rates go up every year, right . No, not at all. Friends keep telling friends about guaranteed acceptance whole Life Insurance from Colonial PennLife Insurance company. With this coverage, your premium never increases for any reason, and your benefit wont decrease simply because you grow older. Options start at just 9. 95 a month. If youre age 50 to 85, you cannot be turned down because of your health. Colonial penn specializes in protection for mature men and women. To find out more, call now. male announcer call now and youll also get this free beneficiary planner and this free prescription savings card that can help you save up to 80 on prescription drugs. Tnk youdoou the. Thats going to do it for now. Thank you so much for joining us, get, answers. We received a lot when it comes to extending the 600 puc payment. They have to wait to see if congress will pass any more bills to get more funding. As of now when it ends july 25th, tonight, several developing stories. The coronavirus hits record highs. The stunning images tonight. The Supreme Court dealing the president a blow on his financial records. And the Tropical Storm just named as we come on. Warnings already up in the east. First, the virus tonight. And the hot spots. Arizona now considered one of the Worlds Largest hot spots. 34 of those tested now positive for covid19. Tonight, the families lining up since midnight last night. Family members in their cars. Including an 80yearold gra grandmother in her mask. The governor, who has not been seen in more than a week, just holding a news conference, and what he said. The stunning numbers tonight and how closely theyre connected to states who decided to reopen early. And ten statements now setting records for hospitalizations. The historic decision from the Supreme Court today about president trumps financial