Indiana restarts payment of federal unemployment benefits

By CASEY SMITH

Associated Press/Report for America

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana has resumed making $300 federal unemployment payments to workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, after a court ordered it to do so.

Regina Ashley, the chief unemployment insurance and workforce solutions officer at the state Department of Workforce Development, said during a news conference that the agency issued 25,000 payments totaling more than $33 million on Friday and expects to make thousands of additional payments in the coming days.

They are the first payments made since mid-June and will be retroactive to the work week that ended June 25.

They come more than a month into a legal battle over the state's participation in federal programs that expanded unemployment benefits during the pandemic.