California EDD adopts 'pay now' policy, will begin paying benefits to qualified claimants Friday

SACRAMENTO -- The California Employment Development Department announced Thursday that it will begin paying unemployment insurance benefits for claimants whose payments have been pending for at least two weeks.

According to the EDD, the new conditional payment program will send funds to potentially hundreds of thousands of people with a continued claim who previously had at least one payment but then went into a pending status for more than two weeks.

"We know many claimants who cleared fraud filters and verified identity have been waiting too long for payment," said EDD Director Rita Saenz. "In response, we are launching a new program that will help many Californians get benefits faster."

The Department says it will begin sending notices this week to claimants who will benefit from this "pay-now" policy. Payments will be reaching claimant accounts starting Friday and over the following weeks.

Claimants who are later found to be ineligible for these payments may be required to pay them back, although the EDD says there will be exceptions for financial hardship and situations where the ineligibility is not the claimant's fault.

You can check EDD's claim status page here for more information.