The CARES Act has come to the rescue of millions of workers who have been laid off or furloughed because of the pandemic. The federal legislation adds 13 weeks to jobless benefits and bumps up the weekly benefit by $600 until the end of July.
The qualifications for benefits in the new law are quite broad. In West Virginia, over 200,000 individuals, or about one-fourth of the workforce, have filed claims for unemployment since March 1.
Now a group of 20 social justice, labor and faith groups have asked Gov. Jim Justice, the state Commerce Department and WorkForce WV to expand the program to “protect workers losing unemployment if they or family members are at risk [emphasis added] due to COVID-19 and they decline to immediately return to work when their employers reopen.”
West Virginia is an unhealthy state — obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, COPD. Much of our population could be considered in the “at risk” category.
State Code does say that an individual is not disqualified for unemployment if they leave work for “health-related reasons.” However, that section of the code also says the individual must present written certification from a doctor that the work “aggravated, worsened or will worsen the individual’s health problem.”
So, there must be something at that job that makes worse their pre-existing condition. The U.S. Labor Department makes clear that failure to return to work because of the fear of contracting COVID-19 disqualifies an individual for unemployment.
The group says their argument is bolstered by the West Virginia Supreme Court decision in Gibson v. Rutledge. In that case, the court ruled that an employee who quit their job for reasons of health is not disqualified from unemployment.
However, the issue in the case was a worker who quit after sustaining a back injury on the job. The Court overturned earlier decisions that denied him benefits, but his injury was real; he wasn’t simply “at risk.”
It is worth noting that the CARES Act is already being loosely interpreted to provide maximum benefits to a broad swath of the population. For example, individuals are allowed to “self-certify” they are unable to work for a number of reasons: They have COVID-19, virus symptoms or are being diagnosed; someone in their home has COVID-19; they are caring for a family member who has the virus; they are caring for a child who is unable to go school; they are self-quarantined, just to name a few.
West Virginians who are off work because of the virus need the benefits. WorkForce is liberally interpreting the CARES Act so that tens of thousands of West Virginians who have been directly impacted by COVID-19 can get help.
But now the push is to extend benefits even further to include those who might get sick. Taken literally, that could include almost everybody in the state’s workforce.
Hoppy Kercheval is a MetroNews anchor and the longtime host of “Talkline.” Contact him at hoppy.kercheval@wvradio.com.
