The Employment Development Department will stop freezing benefits for people whose existing claims have eligibility questions.
Instead, the EDD is implementing a “pay now” policy to issue conditional payments while it investigates problems, rather than subjecting claimants to lengthy waits to get money flowing again. Claimants whose payments are currently frozen will get paid for all the weeks they have missed....however the rollout could take several weeks due to the EDD’s antiquated technology, and the volume of people affected.
“This is a monumental change by EDD that will allow more claimants to be paid on time,” Daniela Urban, executive director of the Center for Workers’ Rights in Sacramento, said in a statement. Her nonprofit, which has spoken to thousands of claimants whose benefits were frozen, was prepared to sue EDD to change its policy, believing it violated the constitutional right to due process.