If you are looking to have the effective date of your claim earlier than the week in which you opened your claim, you can call the PUA Call Center at 855-284-8545 OR you can send an email request to UCpua@pa.gov.
Email Backdating Request:
- Include "Back Date Request" in the subject line of the email
- Provide exact dates and how COVID affected your employment or self-employment for the additional weeks you wish to claim.
Examples: "I want to backdate to March 22nd because I have not worked since March 20th and where I worked has remained closed due to the Governor's closure orders." OR "I want to go back to March 15th because I had to temporarily close my business until June 6th due to the Governor's closure orders. Please note I don't need to claim as of June 7 because I have re-opened my business as of June 8."
- Send only one email request as they will be processed as fast as possible and multiple requests will only delay our ability to process in a timely manner.
Due to an influx of failed hacking attempts to log in to our PUA system, L&I has added an additional security measure.
When logging on to your PUA dashboard, you will need to:
- Enter your Username and Password,
- THEN select the "I'm not a robot" reCAPTCHA to enter the site.
- Select "Sign In"
Please see our complete PUA Dashboard CAPTCHA Guide that walks you through the process.
The Department is notifying certain individuals through their PUA dashboards that they must go through identity verification with ID.me to continue their PUA claim.
- Individuals must follow the link from their dashboard message to complete the steps. Do not register yourself with ID.me though ID.me’s website or through any other link or your claim won’t be recognized as being cleared. You must use the Pennsylvania-specific link sent to you in your PUA dashboard
Only PUA claimants must verify their ID through ID.me.
Only individuals who receive an email in their PUA dashboards to verify their identity with ID.me should do so.
Verifying your identity through ID.me does not guarantee receiving payments.
NOTE: In the Claim Summary section, scroll to the Outstanding Claims issues section to look for open issues on your claim, (use the PUA Outstanding Issue Navigation Guide on this page if you need help finding it). You will not receive any benefits until ALL issues are resolved and only if you are approved on all counts. A disqualification will result in not being eligible for benefits. If there are no other unresolved issues on your claim, any held payments will be made and you should expect to receive those in 3-4 business days.
Individuals under 18 or those who do not have internet access can mail photocopies of two forms of identification (one including a photo):
PA Department of Labor & Industry, Office of UC Service Centers, Room 501, 651 Boas St., Harrisburg, PA, 17121.
NOTE: For those without internet access, staff will inform the individual if identity verification is needed.
The U.S. Department of Labor requires individuals to certify for each week of PUA benefits claimed that they are unemployed for at least one of the COVID-19 reasons provided in Section 2102 of the CARES Act.
If at any time you are no longer unemployed for one of the COVID-19-related reasons included in Section 2102 of the CARES Act, or your unemployment is due to reasons other than one of these specific pandemic-related reasons from Section 2102 of the CARES Act, then you are no longer eligible for PUA benefits. At that point, you should simply stop filing for weekly PUA benefits.
As an important reminder because individual situations may change over time, the reason(s) for unemployment which you initially provided is not required to match the reason(s) you remain unemployed.
Telephone
855-284-8545
Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
(PUA questions only)
Email
UCpua@pa.gov
This email address is for PUA questions only. Emails not related to PUA will not receive a response.