Very few American Samoa workers qualified for fed unemployment

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Of the 820 applications by local workers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that completed the review by the ASG Human Resources Department (ASG-DHR), only 37 of them were found eligible for funding under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistant  (PUA) program and the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program.

This is according to Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga in a statement announcing the disbursement of financial benefits to workers that he says “have suffered income loss because of business closures and loss of employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

As previously reported by Samoa News the first requirement of these two programs is that workers must be US citizens, US nationals or US residents. The local programs are administered by ASG-DHR in accordance with the Hawaii state law.

In the statement last Friday, the governor explained that eligible applicants have been disbursed a total of $376,849, with an average payout of $9,000 per approved application, and “we are grateful for these federal programs which provided financial relief for these individuals.”

Total number of applications filed with ASG-DHR, was 820, exclusive of those who didn’t officially field an application when told about the program eligibility and the requirements.

According to the statement, of the total number of applicants filed, 314 or 39% were disqualified because of foreign nationality. The remaining 514 — or 64% constitute US national and citizen applicants.

Of the alien component of the filers, 123 or 15% are authorized permanent residents of American Samoa and 75% are also legally authorized residents of American Samoa who work and pay taxes to the government.

Of the 514 claimants reviewed, 200 applications are still pending due to incomplete documents given the inordinate number of required documents. After the ongoing review process vetting 514 applications, only 37 or 7.2% have been approved covering the period from February to March and depending on the date of unemployment.

According to the governor, the $600 subsidy will lapse soon if the US Congress doesn't extend the program.  (According to Associated Press, the subsidy is set to expire July 31 — with last week being the last time recipients would get the extra funds unless or until lawmakers act on renewing the subsidy.)

Lolo also said that at the onset of the PUA and FPUC when it was announced by Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata Radewagen, he reached out to the Congresswoman to check into the eligibility requirements of the program because of the rigorous requirements attached to the US Labor Department programs that “we have experienced in the past.

“Consequently, only 37 out of 820 applicants have been approved,” Lolo said, noting that he reached out to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Congress through ASG’ consultants in Washington D.C. to address this issue “as it is unfair that legal residents of American Samoa who pay taxes are denied eligibility to these federal financial relief programs.”

The governor hopes that appropriate changes will be made allowing all of the local people who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic to qualify for these two programs.

Meanwhile the governor congratulated all those whose applications have been approved and he extends gratitude to ASG-DHR director Eseneiaso J. Liu for going after these federal relief programs.