Additional resources available to help claimants file taxes on benefits
Sacramento – The pervasive impacts of this historic COVID-19 pandemic on Californians continues and the California Employment Development Department (EDD) has now processed a total of 19.6 million claims for unemployment benefits for workers in need – far surpassing the claims total of 3.8 million in the worst year of the Great Recession (2010). The EDD is committed to keeping Californians updated on the most recent developments impacting the processing of benefits during this difficult time.
Claim Backlog
EDD has now resolved 99.9% of the 1.6 million backlogged claims identified by the EDD Strike Team in mid-September. A backlogged claim is one that takes more than 21 days to issue first or further payment or disqualification, regardless if the claimant or EDD need to take some type of action.
The EDD will continue to provide weekly reports about the number of claims in process, including pending EDD action that delays payment beyond 21 days. There will always be claims initiated by individuals who do not certify their eligibility for payment and abandon their claim. This happens for many reasons, including because the claimant returns to work or when the claim is fraudulent. Additionally, there will always be more complex claims that take longer than 21 days to resolve, which is acknowledged by the U.S Department of Labor in their performance measures for states.
With that in mind, the EDD will adjust the data reflected on dashboards to better illustrate how many claims are in the queue awaiting EDD action beyond 21 days. EDD is working on a new, more user-friendly dashboard and offers this clarification on the updates in the current two separate backlog dashboards.
Approximately 91%
of the more than 900,000 unique claimants reflected on the two current dashboards come from these two categories: “Waiting for Claimant Certification” category on the current Initial Claims dashboard, and the “Potential Overpayment Non-Fault Queue” which is a subset of the “Resolving Other Eligibility Issues” category on the Continued Claims dashboard. Changes on reporting this data in the new dashboard will include:
- In alignment with the recommendations from the state auditor, the EDD will remove the data that reflects “waiting for claimants to certify”. The EDD continues outreach to claimants about the requirement for completing a certification of eligibility before the first and any further payment every two weeks can be issued. Beyond that, this data does not constitute EDD work that is preventing payment.
- EDD will also remove the “potential overpayment” data. This work by EDD to assess if individuals may have received more in benefits than they qualify for does not prevent payments from being made.
Most of those remaining 9% of data reflected in the two backlog dashboards are associated with EDD’s efforts to implement the newly extended Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits, where new weeks of benefits are being added to older claims.
Status of suspended claims pending verification
The EDD recently suspended a total of 1.4 million claims that were deemed be potentially fraudulent after applying additional screening. Emails and mailed notices started going out in early January to all individuals associated with these claims with instructions to either validate their identity, or that their eligibility must be determined before payments could resume. To date, only about half of the individuals two whom EDD sent emails have opened those emails. The current breakdown includes:
- million individuals were directed to ID.me for identity verification and have 30 days to respond from the date of their notice. So far, more than 300,000 have validated their identity through ID.me. Once EDD receives that information, if otherwise eligible, the payment barriers associated with the identity verification are lifted. It can take 7-10 days for the process to be completed and payment issued. Until then, claimants are encouraged to continue to certify for benefits in UI Online to prevent delays.
-The EDD strongly encourages claimants to review the ID.me step-by-step guidance provided to fully utilize the fast and efficient self-service option for validating identity. This will help claimants avoid the wait times for an ID.me trusted referee via video chat. – Currently, 88% of claimants are able to utilize this self-service feature to quickly verify and protect their account.
- Another approximately 100,000 claimants without a UI Online account were mailed paper requests for identity verification. Once EDD receives and processes that information, if the claimant is otherwise eligible similar action is taken to lift the associated payment barriers and process the claim for payment.
-The EDD strongly encourages claimants to register for an UI Online account to utilize the document upload feature to quickly verify and protect their account.
- The remaining 200,000 individuals are either receiving requests to validate their eligibility (other than identity), or are receiving a Notice of Determination explaining the reason for disqualification from benefits and their right to appeal.
Guidance for claimants who collected benefits from EDD in 2020
EDD is in the process of issuing a record 7.8 million Form 1099G federal tax forms
to individuals who received benefits in 2020, such as unemployment, some types of Disability Insurance, or Paid Family Leave. The fastest way to retrieve this form and related information is through a personal UI Online account, though forms are arriving by mail for those who did not opt for electronic form only. Information about opening an UI Online account is available on our File for Unemployment Overview webpage.
Since the annual 1099G process for federal tax purposes may be new to many
Californians, individuals are encouraged to visit EDD’s Tax Information webpage for more information, or access other tips and a helpful video through this one-page guide. EDD staff will also assist by phone:
- Call 1-866-333-4606 if claimants don’t find their 1099G information in their UI Online account or to request a copy sent by mail. This is a self-serve line.
- Call 1-866-401-2849 if claimants don’t agree with the amount noted on their form or received it erroneously and need the issue corrected. This designated call center line is available Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., except on state holidays.
Individuals who suspect fraud can also visit EDD’s Help Fight Fraud webpage to learn how to report fraud and find information on protecting yourself from identity theft, and can also report fraud through AskEDD Infomration provided by EDD
