ETA Extends Disaster Unemployment Assistance Application Period
After disaster strikes, many victims need time to process how their lives have changed and where to turn for help. Therefore, the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Employment and Training Administration (ETA) this week issued guidance to state workforce agencies noting that it will extend the deadline for disaster victims to apply for Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA) from 30 days to 60 days.
DUA provides temporary income support to eligible individuals who are unemployed as a direct result of a major disaster declared by the president and who are not covered by regular unemployment compensation. The new deadline applies to all presidentially declared disasters after March 23, 2024.
The change stems from the enactment of the Disaster Assistance Deadlines Alignment Act (DADAA) (Pub. L. 118-44), which was signed into law in March and makes the DUA application period match the registration period for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Individuals and Households (IHP) program. The guidance tells states that they must issue press releases with the new application deadline and ensure that any related internal policies match the deadlines in the guidance. The guidance also supersedes the prior deadline denoted in ETA regulations at 20 C.F.R. §625.8(a).
With enactment of DADAA, the new deadline for filing individual initial applications for DUA with the state agency of the applicable state is 60 days after the presidential declaration date of the major disaster as a result of which the individual became unemployed or 60 days from when Individual Assistance (IA) is designated, whichever is later. For a major disaster with IA designated, an initial application filed later than 60 days after the declaration date shall be accepted as timely by the state agency if the applicant had good cause for the late filing, but in no event shall an initial application be accepted by the state agency if it is filed after the expiration of the disaster assistance period. If a state determines that additional time is needed for all individuals covered by the disaster declaration to file timely DUA applications, the state should submit a DUA uniform filing extension request to ETA with a justification for the request.
If FEMA extends the IHP registration deadline for a particular disaster, ETA will also extend the DUA uniform filing extension deadline for that same disaster.
People often aren’t aware of the steps they should take following a disaster so we support the extension provided with DADAA and in the guidance recently issued by ETA.
Join us for our following Thompson Grants events:
2025 Thompson Grants Workshop: Procurement | Jan. 30, 2025 | Virtual Event
2025 Thompson Grants Workshop: Indirect Costs | March 25, 2025 | Virtual Event
