Where are the unemployment checks?

Statement

Three months after passage of the CARES Act, workers laid off in the Marianas because of coronavirus still have not received their unemployment checks--$945 per week for most. Natural Resources and Education and Labor committee chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-Arizona) and Robert Scott (D-Virginia) and I asked U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia this week to explain the unacceptably long delay. Very few can go for three months without income. The Commonwealth could not immediately take applications and cut checks, because there is no existing unemployment system. But Guam faced the same problem and is already paying out the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation. And $70 million from the CARES Act is available right now to make the payments and pump into the Marianas economy. We also forwarded to Secretary Scalia a letter from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Massachusetts) and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) confirming that everyone laid off as a result of coronavirus should be eligible for unemployment, regardless of immigration status. Their committees were responsible for writing the law.

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