On the heels of Congress passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package and President Joe Biden signing it into law, Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment officials vowed there would be no gap in benefits payments like there was earlier this year.

“We’re grateful Congress passed this before the current unemployment insurance benefits ran out, saving hundreds of thousands of claimants from a gap in payments,” said Joe Barella, CDLE executive director, at a Thursday news conference via Zoom.

The new extension of benefits payments to regular unemployment claims, and those for contract/gig workers, will now be Sept. 6.

The CDLE will take down its computers – and all access to MyUI+ accounts – from 7 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday to reprogram the additional payments.

“Congress listened to the people and kept it simple this time by just adding money and weeks to the program,” said Phil Spesshardt, branch manager of the Unemployment Insurance Operations.

In other news, the CDLE released the new unemployment claims filed for the week ending March 6: 11,944.

That’s down 9% from the previous week’s 13,034 new regular unemployment claims — marking two weeks of declining new claims.

In 2021, the new claims have fluctuated up or down an average of 12%.

Unemployed contract, or gig, workers filed an additional 1,454 new claims for the week ending March 6 under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

In the last year, CDLE handled an estimated total of 857,960 regular initial unemployment claims and 256,399 PUA claims, for a total of 1.1 million claims. That’s $7.96 billion in benefits claims paid since March 2020.

While employers are concerned about rising unemployment insurance rates, the state is holding increases at bay while it’s able to borrow – at 0% interest – from the federal government to shore up the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund.

The fund had $1.1 billion in March 2020, but it was depleted rapidly in the face of unprecedented new unemployment claims caused by the pandemic shutdown.

CDLE paid out $2.8 billion from the fund, so Colorado has has to borrow $900 million in interest-free loans from the federal government. The unemployment insurance rate for employers will likely increase after June 30.