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Mississippi Governor Reeves recently ordered that Mississippi employer accounts not be charged with workers’ unemployment insurance (UI) benefits attributable to COVID-19. The noncharge provision applies to both contributory and reimbursing employers and is effective retroactively from March 8, 2020 to June 27, 2020.

Note that federal law provides reimbursement to the states of up to only 50% of UI benefits paid to the employees of reimbursing employers, with refund to the reimbursing employer available after 100% of the UI benefits are paid over to the state. (See the U.S. Department of Labor PROGRAM LETTER No. 18-20).

According to the Mississippi Department of Employment Security (MDES) updated COVID-19 website:

7. Normally, employers’ accounts are charged for any benefits paid to employees in their base period who are laid off or terminated through no fault of their own. However, due to the COVID-19 Emergency, employers’ accounts will not be charged for benefits paid to an individual who is unemployed due to a COVID-19 related situation from March 8, 2020, through June 27, 2020.

Employer notices to separating employees and UI agency

The order requires employers to provide notification of the availability of UI benefits to employees at the time of separation from employment due to COVID-19.

Employers are reminded that the requirement to notify the MDES within 10 days of a worker’s refusal to return to their employment when offered suitable work has not changed due to COVID-19.

Work-search requirements and one-week waiting period are waived for workers filing COVID-19 UI benefit claims

The order directs the MDES to waive the one-week waiting period for worker UI benefits related to COVID-19, effective retroactively to March 8, 2020 through December 26, 2020. The order also waives the work-search, able, available-and-actively-seeking, and work-registration requirements from March 8, 2020 to June 27, 2020.

Claimant UI benefit overpayment garnishments are suspended from March 1, 2020 through June 27, 2020. Also, the offset of future UI benefits due to overpayments will be reduced to 25% from March 29, 2020 to June 27, 2020. These waiver provisions do not apply to child support garnishments or offsets.

For UI benefit claims filed from March 8, 2020 to June 27, 2020, the MDES is directed to base workers’ UI benefit eligibility on the separation from the most recent employer and not the worker’s other base period employer(s). Eligibility will not be affected by prior job separations from previous employers.

Order expands the amount of wages workers may earn before UI benefits are affected

The order expands the UI benefit program to allow workers as they return to work to earn up to $200 in wages per week (up from $40 per week) without causing a reduction in their weekly UI benefit amount. Any amount earned over $200 will be deducted from a claimant’s weekly benefit amount.

According to the MDES COVID-19 website, this provision does the following:

6. Normally, if you are working part time (less than 35 hours a week) and are making less than your weekly benefit amount, you are still allowed to receive partial benefits. To calculate this, MDES adds $40.00 to your weekly benefit amount, then subtracts your wages for the week to determine your partial benefits. For example, if you earn $200.00, and your weekly benefit amount is $235.00, MDES will subtract $200.00 from $275.00 (your weekly benefit amount plus the $40.00 earning allowance) to give you a partial benefit amount of $75.00. However, due to the COVID-19 Emergency, that credit amount is increased to $200.00 for claims filed from May 3, 2020, to June 27, 2020. This means that if you are receiving wages in the amount of $200.00, and your weekly benefit amount is $235.00, MDES will subtract $200.00 from $435.00 (your weekly benefit amount plus the $200.00 allowance), which allows you to receive the full benefit amount of $235.00. For any week you are eligible for regular state unemployment insurance benefits, you would also qualify for Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) in the amount of $600 in addition to any benefits or partial benefits you receive during this time.

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