“We’re hoping that [unemployment assistance for CWs] will get approval…but there’s no assistance at this point in terms of local funding,” Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said during a press briefing Tuesday on KKMP radio.
In June, CNMI Department of Labor Secretary Vicky Benavente encouraged CWs to apply for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance/Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation programs.
Recently, however, U.S. DOL said CWs are not eligible for federal unemployment assistance.
“I know that [Secretary Benavente] has no intention to make false claims,” the governor said.
U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Massachusetts, and Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, earlier urged U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia to work with the CNMI Department of Labor to ensure that PUA was also open to CNMI-Only Transitional Workers who were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But U.S. DOL insists that CWs are not eligible.
U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan said the U.S. DOL “interpretation of the law simply ignores the eligibility language in the CARES Act. By ignoring the PUA eligibility clauses of the CARES Act, the department is incorrectly administering the program, in a manner contrary to the very intent of the CARES Act. That intent is to provide assistance to workers who have been displaced by the coronavirus crisis. This is not the first time that a federal agency, responsible for implementing the laws Congress passes, interprets the law in a way that is directly at odds with the intention of Congress.”
Gov. Torres said his door is always open should Congressman Kilili would like to discuss this matter.
