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good afternoon and thank you for joining us for today's call with l i secretary jerry alexia and uc benefits policy director susan dickinson i'm teresa elliott deputy communications director for lni please submit your questions by clicking the chat icon which is the blue thought bubble at the bottom of your screen please include your name and media outlet followed by your question in the interest of time you'll be limited to one question but time permitting will open up the call for a second round you may submit any follow-up questions to us at dli press at pa.gov and we will address them after the call for your awareness this call is being recorded if you do not consent to being recorded please hang up now following the call a link to the recording will be provided to the media outlets that participated we'll start with comments from secretary geriolexiac secretary thank you teresa and thank you to those of you who have joined us this afternoon we appreciate your flexibility with the later start time um they begin with the uh figures as we uh often do since more always do since march 15th we've paid more than 32 billion dollars in benefits 12.6 in regular unemployment comp 15 billion from the federal pandemic unemployment compensation program which is the extra 600 and that program ended on saturday uh four billion dollars from the pandemic unemployment assistance program that's the program for those who are generally not eligible for unemployment compensation and we've paid 298 million from the federal pandemic emergency unemployment compensation program which extends benefits and 14.2 million from pennsylvania's extended benefits program and that's where that 32 billion comes from 94 of eligible claimants who filed for unemployment compensation between march 15th and june 27th were either paid or deemed not eligible for benefits the remaining six percent are claims at the automated system for various reasons that we've talked about in the past could not approve and are under individual review by our staff as far as our unemployment comp customer service our employees have worked almost 230 000 hours 229 726 hours of overtime since march 15th uh we have increased our staffing levels we're now up to 122 percent increase since march 15th uh we have at 775 employees on march 15th and we have a current total of 1719. um 452 of those are staff that have newly joined us in july and uh we are finalizing numbers now for another round of new staff that will be brought on board and begin training in september this increase the total uh comes from hiring new employees reassigning uh staff from other state offices and agencies and reassigning people within our own agency thus far since march 15th we've responded to about 690 000 emails uh close to 315 000 phone calls about 122 000 live chats and about 271 000 calls have been taken by our virtual assistant and those numbers are getting better all the time related to the pool fraud you know we issued a press release last week on july 31st urging pennsylvanians to report unemployment benefits fraud we have continued to work with state and federal partners and thus far have identified about 4 000 fraudulent claims in pennsylvania for pua benefits and by identifying those claims we prevented more than 44 million dollars uh from reaching the fraudsters who are trying to have access to that our partners include the u.s attorney's office in philadelphia the pennsylvania attorney general's office the pennsylvania treasury u.s bank and more and this fraud investigation is far from over it's ongoing um as we've said before this is a identity theft fraud ring that's targeting cover 19 employment compensation benefits across the nation this is not just in pennsylvania and unfortunately many pennsylvanians aren't aware that their benefits have been stolen in the past until they do receive some information from us or from uc bank through their credit card or the treasury from direct deposit debit card i'm sorry not credit card debit card so we urge people to remain vigilant to look for warning signs of the scam and what to do if you become a victim the press release we issued is available at dli.pa.gov and that list includes a list of those warning signs to tell you if you have been victimized details on how to report that fraud and instructions on how to return any fraudulent benefits that someone may have received so we continue to make progress with that and we will continue to fight that uh as long as it's out there as you are well aware and have we and we as we have talked about for uh several of these media calls over the past few weeks uh the federal pandemic unemployment compensation program which is the extra six hundred dollars per week ended on july 25th uh the federal government funded that as part of the cares act the governor's office our office we have urged congress to extend that six hundred dollar weekly federal benefit to help struggling families who need to keep food on the table and pay their bills as we continue to experience high numbers of covet 19 cases and we have encouraged anyone who is supportive of extending benefits to contact their legislators and let them know where you stand anyone who is waiting on payment for uc claims from the weeks of april 4th through july 25th will still receive those backdated payments if eligible as we've said in the past few weeks getting ready for this there are other additional state resources that are available through dhs the department of human services those programs include medicaid the chip program children's health insurance program uh snap the supplemental nutrition assistance program ly heap which is the low income home energy assistance program and tanf temporary assistance for needy families dhs had also received approval to administer other particular programs specifically related to the covet 19 pandemic and we would urge any of our fellow citizens who need those services to contact dhs through their website compass c-o-m-p-a-s-s dot state dot p-a pa.us that's compass.state.pa.us and you can also uh call the statewide customer service center at uh 877-395-8930 pennsylvania insurance department also has a website that uh will explain uh possible um opportunities for uh extension of healthcare benefits and that's at insurance.pa.gov and on the state website pa.gov there is a link to resources for pennsylvanians which will link people to mental health resources financial help mortgage and rent information food assistance and other things they may need during this difficult time we urge everyone also to take advantage of the free services that are offered by the pa careerlink offices over 60 of them located across the state whether you want to learn new skills look for a better job information on high school equivalency various services that are provided through the pennsylvania career links these are virtual right now and we hope to expand that as as the pandemic continues but we'll you know we'll see how that goes again adult education classes career counseling on the job training programs resume assistance virtual workshops and there are some resources for employers as well and the last thing i'll mention we are continuing to hold our virtual town halls for the public i think we've done 10 of those so far we'll do number 11 this thursday at 1 pm people can access that through access dot live slash pa labor or they can call eight three three three eight zero zero seven one nine and again we can't get into specifics with people about their uh specific claim but we can answer general questions and help people get the answers they are looking for so with that said i think susan we're ready to take questions so we'll be happy to take your questions thank you all right our first question of the day is from fox 43 news and we have rachel yakunis on the line and she asked some viewers have told us they stopped receiving our uc payments about three weeks ago without any notice or information provided if it's truly sorry susan sorry can you explain what's what would stop the issuance of uc payments so if it's and i wonder if there may be a terminology mismatch so if it's truly uc um and not peuc or eb or pua then it could be a sign of fraud we had mentioned a while ago on on many of these calls that uh individuals were experiencing um sudden stops in their payments that was back in june or so where uh they were receiving direct deposit uc payments and then all of a sudden stopped receiving their direct deposit you see payments the the key factor is to look at their online account with us their their claims data they can look to see what the last payments were that were made and if there were payments that were made that are recent and yet they didn't receive the money in their bank account it could be a flag of fraud now um the reason i'm i'm doubting that this is probably about regular uc payments is because the time frame that issue with the direct deposit stopped about two months ago whereas um this if it started just three weeks ago i'm wondering if it might be one of the extension claims uh we had the quarter change happen and we had to stop the claim and test everyone for a regular uc claim uh so that is likely the case if they were on peuc or eb uh staff would be checking to see if they can qualify for a regular uc claim before having them continue on that claim as soon as they are verified as not being eligible for regular uc then they'll be permitted to you know continue on the claim that they're on however if they are eligible for regular uc they'll be contacted to file a regular uc claim and their extension claim will be stopped while they go over to the regular uc claim um and also for pua it's possible that if the individuals are on pua that perhaps uh they had answered a question incorrectly or they um are part of a uh they got you know like a fraud filter um and we have to verify their identity um so those are just some possible issues you know without having the actual individuals in front of me to see what's happening with them specifically it's hard to say but those are ideas based on what program they're on as to what might be happening next leigh lesniak from nbc 10 writes one of our viewers tells us he's been receiving hua payments he accepted gig work several weeks back which he says disqualified him from benefits for that week however he says the pua payments he believes he's entitled to for the following two weeks have not come through can you please share if accepting work for one week causes a delay and processing payments for the following weeks for the pua program when someone reports that they are working full-time for a week in full-time meaning just that they are working excessive um with an excessive earnings amount so they're they're earning too much to be considered unemployed for the week when that happens on a pua claim it does hold up the claim uh and not let them file for the the subsequent weeks uh what they have to do is reopen their claims so if you are and this is true for regular uc as well if you are employed for a week and you're not eligible for a uc benefit because you're not unemployed at all then um what you have to do is reopen your claim and then you're permitted to continue uh filing once you've reopened so that is something that is a little confusing you know to to the public in general we do have information in the claimant handbook and online uh www.uc.pa.gov so when you are after you are fully employed you know your your claim is so good but you don't have to file a new one but you just have to reopen what you have available to you kdks nicole ford asks with the loss of the extra six hundred dollars impacting so many people across the commonwealth is the department in support of any new unemployment benefits at the federal level welfare sorry uh yes absolutely we have contacted our congressional uh delegation we've uh worked with uh um national agencies like naswa the national association of state workforce agencies and council state governments and other other uh agencies like that to let our our opinion be known that we are supportive of an extension of the uh federal unemployment benefits um and we would like to see it kept at six hundred dollars um wherever congress ultimately lands as you know there but a lot of back and forth uh on that but wherever they ultimately land we will um be ready to uh get that program going if it's a flat rate and we've talked about this before as well if it's a flat rate we can do that relatively simply if it there is anything that involves a percentage of of a person's income if the unemployment benefits are based on that percentage that could take a considerable amount of time for us to adapt to that new system as long as three or four months depending on the particulars of it once if they do pass a bill today for example it could still be some time before we would get the regulations and guidelines that we would need from the department of labor and then we would begin doing whatever we needed to do to continue that extension of benefits joe nafsha from the pittsburgh tribune review asks any estimate on a number of people in pennsylvania who have lost f-puck um at a couple weeks ago when we we looked to see how many individuals had received an f-puck payment it was just over 2 million now that is the total number of people since the beginning of the pandemic who's received at least one f-puck payment so that doesn't necessarily mean that they were all recently filing they could have exhausted benefits they could have stopped filing because they went back to work um so i don't have a number for uh how many people have lost it beginning with this this current week who were receiving it previously but we do know that to about 2 million have received an f payment total since the beginning of the pandemic carlisle sentinel zack asked since the f-puck has ended how difficult will it be to turn back on so to speak if congress decides to do so yeah that's i think very similar answer to what we just gave where it really depends on the details of not just the legislation but also the details of the regulations and guidelines that we need to follow clearly if it's a flat rate that's something that will be uh easier for lack of a better word it won't be easier but it will be easier to turn the system back on if it's 600 we should be able to do that in a matter of a few days and susan you can correct me if i'm wrong if it's a different flat rate that may take as long as a week and if it is a a percentage of income that's a whole different story that could take several months correct and it's um the f puck isn't technically off right now it's going to be on for a long time because we're still making payments for weeks that are um in the past you know so uh it'll it'll still be on it's just a matter of you know if they were to extend it and they were to make it a flat rate but it's a different rate um you know just be changing a table behind the scenes to marry up the rate to the dates so that the correct uh weeks get the correct amounts paid with them uh so the program is on it doesn't actually go off it won't for a while um so it'll continue making those payments to individuals for weeks july 25th and prior following this next question we'll be entering our second round of questions so i encourage anyone who has any additional follow-ups at this time to please submit them using the chat icon next we have lauren rosenblatt from pittsburgh post gazette you mentioned last week pennsylvania is now borrowing money from the federal government for its uc trust fund when did you begin borrowing the money how much does the state borrow at a time and how long will the loans be interest free sorry i mute we uh did begin that process last week um and it's uh more like a line of credit than an actual you know loan uh what we uh are borrowing um 800 million dollars for the month of august uh billion dollars for the month of september and a billion dollars for the month of october so that's what the line of credit will be available to us and they are interest-free loans uh i'm not sure if there's a cap on that on the how long they are interest-free but we had to do this during the great recession nd we were able to actually pay off the loan early so you know it's obviously a different uh situation right now but that's the basics of it okay it looks like we have no additional questions at this time so i'd like to ask secretary alexia or susan if they have any final thoughts or information to leave with our participants today thank you again for joining us and for helping get the word out uh we continue to as we we've said every week our staff is growing we're training people to get on the phones to respond to emails and to continue to get benefits in the hands of people that need them so thank you and that's all the time we have for today please email our communications office at dli press at pa.gov with any additional questions thank you so much for joining us today and stay well thank you