Gov. Edwards says all La. residents receiving unemployment benefits will get additional $300 per week

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Governor John Bel Edwards announced during a news conference Thursday, Aug. 13 the state has received guidance from the federal government on how to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order which called for additional unemployment benefits.

Edwards says he anticipates all individuals who are receiving unemployment benefits will receive an additional $300 in benefits and will be retroactive to Aug. 1.

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President Trump’s executive order called for an additional $300 in unemployment benefits funded by the CARES Act and $100 funded by states.

Edwards said since the sate’s the CARES ACT funding is already allocated and it does not have any of its additional funding to pull from, the new guidance allows the state to provide $300 in additional unemployment benefits from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

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The governor said the funding for the additional benefits is coming from the FEMA Disaster Relief Fund.

He said he did not know when the additional unemployment checks would be going out to Louisiana residents because there are still several steps the federal government has to take in allocating the funding.

More than 400,000 Louisiana residents are currently receiving unemployment benefits, according to Edwards.

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