MADISON – The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today announced that the department has deployed the Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) program. DWD began releasing benefits Thursday, October 15 and will continue making payments over the next week.
“Staff at DWD have worked diligently to program a complex program that will get additional unemployment insurance dollars into the hands of out-of-work Wisconsinites,” Deputy Secretary Robert Cherry said. “The program falls far short of what individuals who have had their employment affected by the pandemic need, and in Wisconsin, we will continue to look at ways to help individuals during this difficult time.”
The LWA program is a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program that provides an additional $300 per week to eligible claimants who certify that they are unemployed or partially unemployed due to disruptions caused by COVID-19 and whose weekly benefit rate is at least $100 in one of the following unemployment-related assistance programs: regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), or Trade Readjustment Allowance (TRA). FEMA approved Wisconsin for the LWA program on September 1. The LWA benefit payments are estimated to result in another $224 million in the hands of Wisconsinites.
Payments from the LWA program will be made retroactively to eligible claimants for up to six weeks: the weeks ending August 1, August 8, August 15, August 22, August 29, and September 5, 2020. FEMA will not fund any weeks after September 5, 2020. DWD estimates up to 220,000 claimants may be eligible for LWA.
For more information, please visit https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/uiben/lwa/
