Tennesseans begin receiving $900 LWA unemployment payment

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Federal unemployment money from President Donald Trump’s executive action is now being shared across the state.

If you haven’t checked your bank account yet, it may be time to do so. As we expected, Tennessee was one of the first states to begin processing the Lost Wages Assistance grant.

So if you’ve been waiting for the money to arrive, Friday may just be that day. Many across the state have already begun to see the $900 in either their bank accounts or their Way2Go cards.

The $900 is made up of three payments of $300 each week, retroactive to August 1. To be eligible you must have lost your job because of COVID-19 and you’ve already been eligible for at least $100 in unemployment benefits per week.

Unlike the $600 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation fund from before, this is a grant which means having a set amount of $44 billion split between the states who were approved.

If and when this money runs out, Chris Cannon with the Dept. of Labor & Workforce Development says we’ll be back to waiting.

“When that funding is over, the program is over. So we really don’t know how long that $300 is going to last. It could be a couple weeks, it could be a couple of months or it could go until the end of December,” Cannon said.

If you haven’t seen the money in your account yet, you still have time. Payments are expected to be made between now and early next week. Remember that you’re only eligible for the weeks you’ve certified for, so if you haven’t certified every week, you could end up with less money.