Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)

What is PUA?

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) provided up to 79 weeks of unemployment benefits to individuals not eligible for regular unemployment compensation or extended benefits due to COVID-19. PUA benefits ceased on September 4, 2021.

To access account information such as overpayments, appeal status, documents and more, log in to the PUA Benefits Portal.

Understanding your Benefit Summary

Some claimants may still be seeing issue codes on their PUA claim. To better understand your benefit summary, please access the full alphabetical list of issue codes and their meanings. For your convenience, we have gathered the most common codes below:

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WHAT YOU SEE	WHAT IT MEANS	WHAT COMES NEXT
Monetarily Ineligible	You did not have adequate wages and/or credit weeks reported by your employer(s) during the base year period.	Please review your financial determination for accuracy. If your employer(s) failed to report all your wages and/or credit weeks, you may file a wage protest for assistance. You may be required to provide documentation such as pay stubs or your most recent W-2.
Active Issues	Payment will not be made until issues are resolved.	UC Customer Service staff will reach out to resolve your issue.
Inactive	You must file weeks on a timely basis. The system will allow you to file every week. Because of extremely high volume, right now you can go back 8 weeks without penalty. If you have a claim that has not yet expired and still has a balance available, you will be presented with this message if you have not filed for benefits for 8 weeks or more.	For more information on what you should do, please access the Weekly Certification Messages User Guide (PDF).
Debit Card	Payment made, check your debit card.	You will see a transaction number that will confirm your payment on your dashboard.
Direct Deposit	Payment made, check your bank account.	You will see a transaction number that will confirm your payment on your dashboard.
In Progress	Your claim now shows an “in progress” message when you have filed a claim and have not yet received payments. This message will show while L&I determines whether or not you are eligible for benefits, including during the determination period. If no issues exist on your claim, you should expect the Benefit Pay Date to display the date (Month/Day/Year) on the following business day, indicating that the payment was released.	Once you see a payment date, you should expect to receive your payment via debit card or direct deposit within 1 to 2 business days. Please allow extra days for holidays and weekends.
Disqualified	Payment will not occur because you were denied benefits. The determination explaining your denial is in your message center. NOTE: Determinations made prior to June 8, 2021, are not in your message center.	You should refer to any eligibility issue codes for more information on why you were considered ineligible for that week.
Not Applicable	This is a status you see for week #1 of your claim. This signifies a waiting week, which is not payable per PA UC law. For the duration of the pandemic declaration, waiting weeks were waived and you could see that this will change to a date when payment is processed. You may also see “Not Applicable” if you have excessive earnings for the week and are therefore not eligible for a payment. Learn more about working part-time and filing for benefits.

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PUA Contact Information

Individuals with PUA-related questions can reach out by phone or email.

Phone: 888-313-7284 available Monday - Friday from 8:00 am - 4:30 pm (EST)
Email: UCHelp@pa.gov

For more contact information, please visit the UC Benefits Contact page.

​Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)