State of Hawaiʻi Launches Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation Program

The Hawaiʻi State Department of Labor & Industrial Relations will start today to process applications for the federal mixed earners unemployment compensation program, which provides an additional $100 per week in benefits.

Claimants are eligible for mixed earners unemployment compensation (MEUC) if they have W-2 wages and earn a net income of at least $5,000 in self-employment work in the most recent taxable year before they applied for unemployment benefits. Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) recipients are not eligible for MEUC. Mixed earners also are known as “hybrid workers.”

“MEUC is another lifeline available for people struggling through the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic,” said Anne Perreira-Eustaquio, Director of the Department of Labor & Industrial Relations. “MEUC was created in response to workers whose past income wasn’t fully being counted and now that the program has launched, claimants who have side income will see an increase in their weekly benefit amount”

MEUC benefits are available for the week ending Jan. 2, 2021, through the week ending Sept. 4, 2021. Claimants who think they may be eligible for MEUC benefits will need to submit proof of qualifying income to the department. Claimants will need to apply through the web at pua.hawaii.gov.

For more information about MEUC, visit the department’s Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation FAQs.

The complex MEUC program is the sixth federal benefit program implemented by the Department of Labor & Industrial Relations since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

Important note: None of the benefits described above, nor unemployment benefits of any kind, are available to employees who are terminated for cause, quit their job without good cause, or refuse to return to work. Attempts to collect benefit payments in these situations could be viewed as fraudulent. Investigation of job separation is part of the eligibility determination process.

For more information about unemployment insurance and other labor issues please visit the FAQs at https://labor.hawaii.gov/covid-19-labor-faqs/.