The Guam Department of Labor said today it has another $181 million in federal funds loaded into the payment management system to continue batching and paying unemployment claims.
For Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, $97 million is available in the account, and another $84 million is available for Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, Guam DOL said.
“We were able to get these funds into our system in just over a week which is unprecedented. I have to give credit to my hardworking staff, including my administrative services officer for having the request ready to go. This goes to show that my staff and the way we are running our program is an indication of why they were able to fund us so quickly,” said Department of Labor Director David Dell'Isola . The agency also ran its third unemployment batch of the year, which yielded $14.1 million in benefits.
Of that amount, $7.6 million is in PUA, $6.5 million is in FPUC and about $58,500 is in Lost Wages Assistance. Another $1.2 million will go toward federal withholding taxes.
All clear claims in the system were batched and claimants can expect funds to be in accounts by the end of this week or early next week, the labor department said.
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“This makes for more than $54 million we’ve been able to disburse to our unemployed in just two months, and about $560 million total we’ve paid out since June 2020," Dell'Isola said. "My department continues to work with our governor and lieutenant governor to ensure we’re prioritizing getting these funds out to the people in order to ease some of the strains of the pandemic.”
The labor department said it plans to continue batching bi-weekly, and claimants can expect the next set of unemployment funds to be ready for distribution March 2.
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