U.S. Treasury Department guidance allows the money to be used to replenish unemployment trust funds to their pre-pandemic levels. Most of those states had to borrow from the federal government as pandemic-related layoffs provided a major hit to state unemployment funds. Tom Wolf’s administration and the Republican-led Legislature to use federal coronavirus relief money to restore the state's unemployment fund. Worker advocacy groups have raised concerns that some states are putting coronavirus relief money into their unemployment funds while also ending an extra $300 weekly federal unemployment benefit. Jim Justice has set aside around $600 million of federal pandemic relief money for the state's unemployment system.

Source: ABC News May 27, 2021 16:31 UTC