The 51-year-old father of three said he filed a federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claim in July.
Five months later, he said he has yet to receive any help.
“Not a single dollar since I filed a PUA claim,” he said on Tuesday. “They called me about two months ago to submit a valid ID. I sent my driver’s license. I didn’t hear from them after that.”
Michelle Retta Sue, a court interpreter, said she’s been waiting to receive unemployment assistance since filing her claim in June.
Sue said she understands the PUA program is something new to Guam, but it’s been about six months of waiting.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance staff member Peter Santos checks the temperatures of unemployment aid applicants before ushering them into the PUA processing center at Guam Community College on June 15, 2020. The Guam Daily Post photo
Around September, she said, a Guam Department of Labor staff member told Sue she qualifies for PUA only from March 14 to June 12 since she has an “on-call duty as a court interpreter.”
Hours after sharing her story with The Guam Daily Post on Tuesday, Sue said GDOL reached out to her about her PUA claim.
This time, Sue said, she’s more hopeful that Labor will review and process her unemployment benefits.
“I really appreciate it,” she said.
While most of Guam’s pandemic-displaced workers have been receiving their PUA and Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments regularly since June, there are some like Hossain and Sue who have not received any unemployment aid at all.
‘Hopefully before Christmas’
Labor Director David Dell’Isola on Tuesday said the department is working on problem claims filed by those “who have not received initial PUA payment.”
Once these problem claims are resolved, he said, the recipients should be able to receive at least their initial PUA payment.
Labor, he said, will do its best to release the workers’ first PUA “hopefully before Christmas.”
Most of Guam’s estimated 27,000 to 30,000 individual PUA claims have already received payments.
But for one reason or another, some claims hit a snag because of errors mostly from the user such as a lack of documentation or wrong information provided.
There are also massive fraudulent claims that bombard the Guam PUA system, and Labor has to filter those to get to the legitimate claims.
On Thursday, Labor will also be batching PUA claims filed through Dec. 9 to get as much assistance to displaced workers before Christmas, as Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero directed, Dell’Isola said.
The prior batch paid was for cleared claims filed through Oct. 1.
‘A time of need’
Maegan Cepeda, 20, lost her job on Aug. 17, but couldn’t file a PUA claim until October when she got a formal notice from her employer, she said.
She has since been filing her weekly unemployment claim and is hoping Labor will finally release her assistance.
“My family is in a time of need right now,” she said.
Her father, the family’s main breadwinner, lost his job in the tourism industry, which is not expected to reopen until early 2021.
“I know Labor has been taking care of a lot of people right now, but it would be greatly appreciated to get some help right now,” Cepeda said in a phone interview.
Jaylee Sellem, 39, lost her job in mid-September at I-Sandwich & Pho and immediately filed for PUA so she could support her three children, but she said she has yet to receive help.
With Christmas just around the corner, she said she hopes she can at least bring some holiday cheer to her children.
“I want to buy their Christmas present but I don’t have money,” she said. “I called (Labor’s PUA) many times and they said they will call me back.”
Sellem showed a screenshot of the 13 weeks she already claimed for, and is now just hoping to get a call from Labor to let her know whether she still needs to provide additional documents so they can process her benefits payments.
Each eligible worker who was laid off, displaced or got drastic work hour cuts as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic can receive a maximum of 39 weeks of PUA payments. The last day covered by PUA is Dec. 26.
‘I keep calling’
Mensior Simi said he lost his job in March and didn’t apply for PUA until Oct. 14.
“I keep calling, no response,” he said.
Like Simi, Hossain has also been trying to call Labor’s PUA numbers and 311, but either his calls couldn’t go through or he’s told to wait for a call from PUA.
“It’s been a long time. I need help,” Hossain said. “I hope you will try your best to help me.”
Wary of getting sick from Covid-19 because of a prior heart problem, Hossain also decided to limit the amount of customers he can help.
“So when it’s really air-con emergency and if they can bring the air con to my house, then I fix it,” he said. “But I am trying to avoid going to people’s houses or businesses because I don’t know if people there have Covid.”
The little income he gets from his customers helps him get by, mainly for food. But as far as rent payments, he said, he’s four months behind in paying his share.
He said he looks forward to having a full-time job as a certified air-conditioner technician when the Covid-19 pandemic is over.
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance covers unemployment starting in February. On Guam, the PUA application period opened on May 30 and the first payments were released in late June.
The U.S. Department of Labor approved a $924 million budget for Guam’s PUA. Of that amount, some $514 million has been made available, based on the number of claims filed so far.
