Frequently Asked Questions About Receiving Supplemental Payments for Lost Wages

The President has authorized the FEMA Administrator to provide grants to states, territories or District of Columbia to make supplemental lost wages payments to those receiving unemployment insurance compensation, in accordance with sections 408(e)(2) and (f) of the Stafford Act (42 U.S.C. §§§ 5174(e)(2), (f)). Tribal members can access supplemental lost wages payments through their state’s/territory’s unemployment agency, as they do with regular unemployment.

The information regarding the process for states, territories and the District of Columbia to request additional weekly lost wages payments can be found on FEMA.gov. State, territories and the District of Columbia may submit the following Lost Wages Additional Week Request documentation to FEMA at FEMA-LWA-Reporting@fema.dhs.gov:

• Lost Wages Additional Week Request Template
• SF-424A 

States, territories and the District of Columbia should submit Lost Wages Additional Week Request documentation for one week at a time. No more than one week shall be submitted on each Lost Wages Additional Week Request template. FEMA will process these requests within 3 business days.

FEMA will review requests at the end of each week of eligibility. For example, the earliest FEMA will review a request for a fourth week of additional payments is August 22^nd. The earliest FEMA will review a request for a fifth week of additional payments is August 29^th. The earliest FEMA will review a request for a sixth week of additional payments is September 5^th.

Presidential Memorandum

This eligibility provision is determined at the individual level based on the individual’s weekly benefit amount. An individual is determined to have received at least $100 per week for purposes of being an “eligible claimant” if the individual’s WBA as provided on the monetary determination is at least $100 (including any dependents’ allowance). In addition, the week in question must be considered compensable.

Once the Period of Assistance terminates, no additional funding will be provided by FEMA in grant awards or amendments for benefit payments. However, during the grant award’s Period of Performance, the state, territory, and the District of Columbia may continue to incur allowable administrative costs under the LWA program (2 C.F.R. § 200.309).  During the Period of Performance, states, territories, and the District of Columbia may continue the issuance of supplemental payments to eligible claimants who submitted timely claims during the Period of Assistance. In other words, during the Period of Performance:

• States, territories, and the District of Columbia may continue to issue LWA payments to claimants for the weeks they were eligible as long as those claimants submitted their claim(s) during the Period of Assistance. States, territories, and the District of Columbia may only issue these payments if they have funding available within the total obligation awarded for benefits by FEMA during the Period of Assistance.
• With regard to appeals, states, territories and the District of Columbia may pay applicants for the 6 weeks of assistance authorized for supplemental lost wages benefits following appeals that are decided in the applicants’ favor during the Period of Performance if funding is available within the total obligation awarded for benefits by FEMA during the Period of Assistance.

FEMA acknowledges that states, territories and the District of Columbia may not be able to administer payments to all eligible applicants who submitted timely claims or adjudicate all timely appeals during the initial Period of Performance. Therefore, states, territories, and the District of Columbia may request an extension of the Period of Performance, if necessary, to fully administer the LWA program and make all eligible payments within the total obligation awarded by FEMA.  

Unemployment Insurance (UI) employees are federally funded by the Department of Labor (DOL). The DOL’s funding may not be used to administer supplemental lost wages assistance.

As such, the state, territory and the District of Columbia may utilize the funding provided by FEMA for administrative costs under the supplemental lost wages assistance grant for employees’ regular and overtime hours to deliver supplemental lost wages assistance. Example: 40 hours per week is normally paid with 100% UI funding. The employee is now spending 50% of her time on supplemental lost wages assistance. So long as the state, territory and the District of Columbia does not charge 50% of the employee’s cost to the UI administrative grant for the period of time that the employee is supporting supplemental lost wages assistance, the state/territory can use FEMA funding for administrative costs to pay the employee’s costs for administering supplemental lost wages payments.

States, territories and the District of Columbia must account for the time charged and demonstrate a proportional allocation of staff costs to facilitate the delivery of the program so as to avoid any improper duplication of charging. As a general rule, the state, territory and the District of Columbia may submit charges to administer supplemental lost wages assistance for all employee overtime and any portion of the employee’s regular time costs not also paid for with other federal funds.

The Presidential Memorandum authorized up to $400 through the supplemental lost wages assistance program, including a $300 federal contribution. If the state, territory and the District of Columbia chooses to provide an amount beyond this using non-UI funds, it is considered a separate state/territory program which would be subject to authorization under state law.

The state, territory and the District of Columbia is responsible for refunding to FEMA any unobligated balances that FEMA paid that are not authorized to be retained per 2 C.F.R. § 200.343(d).

Additionally, states, territories and the District of Columbia are responsible for recovering assistance awards from individual claimants who obtained the assistance fraudulently, assistance awards made to individuals who were not eligible for unemployment, and assistance awards made in error (See 44 C.F.R. 206.120(f) (4 and 5); see also 2 C.F.R. § 200.343(a)-(b) for guidance on the grant closeout and liquidation period).

FEMA recognizes the burden and challenges states may face investigating and pursuing the recovery of fraudulent and improper lost wages assistance payments. Section 262 of the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act of 2020 provides that states, territories, and the District of Columbia may waive overpayments under the LWA program when the individual is not at fault for the payment, and repayment would be contrary to equity and good conscience. Such waivers only apply to LWA and apply to both the requirement for repayment by individuals (to the states, territories, and the District of Columbia) and the requirement for repayment by states, territories, and District of Columbia (to FEMA). FEMA does not have the authority to waive overpayments or to waive the requirement that states reimburse FEMA for the Federal share of awards not waived under the authority of Section 262.

The period of assistance is the week ending August 1, 2020 to December 27, 2020 or termination of the program, whichever is sooner. Assistance from FEMA for providing supplemental payments for lost wages may terminate prior to December 27, 2020 if:

1. FEMA expends $44 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) for supplemental lost wages assistance.
2. The total, unobligated balance of the DRF decreases to $25 billion,
3. Legislation is enacted that provides, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supplemental federal pandemic unemployment compensation or similar compensation for unemployed or partially unemployed individuals.

The state, territory and the District of Columbia is to include the $300 or $400 on the ONA Option Selection Form. Instructions are below for completing the FEMA Form 010-0-11: Individuals and Households Program (IHP) - Other Needs Assistance Administrative Option Selection that includes the correct selections for a grant to administer supplemental payments for lost wages are available below.

• On page 3, complete the ADDITIONAL ONA ITEMS Section. In the first box under ADDITIONAL ONA ITEMS include the following information:
• Line Item: Write “Individual Weekly Supplemental Lost Wages Benefit -- $300 or $400.
• ONA Category: Write “Miscellaneous”.
• Standard Quantity: Write “1”.
• Maximum Quantity Awarded: Write “N/A”.
• Justification/Situations for Use: Write “Supplemental payments for lost wages needed as a result of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic, as authorized by the Presidential Memorandum on Authorizing the Other Needs Assistance Program for Major Disaster Declarations Related to Coronavirus Disease 2019.”

At grant close out, the state, territory and the District of Columbia will need to demonstrate how they met the statutory cost share. The state, territory and the District of Columbia will be responsible for demonstrating 25% of the total aggregate grant award. For the $300 option, states, territories and the District of Columbia can satisfy this cost share by showing that they expended state/territory funds equivalent to at least 25% of the total grant amount on regular unemployment payments to individuals who received lost wages supplemental payments, retroactive to the week ending August 1, 2020.