With states implementing stay-at-home orders, causing many non-essential businesses to close temporarily, the job market has increasingly diminished.

High school students or any other young person with a job may not understand the aspects of unemployment.

Whether it be worries about money or simply not having anything to do, unemployment can drastically terrify people.

Several companies have limited their hours or even completely shut down for the duration of this event—requiring workers to be furloughed or laid off.

Being furloughed means that an employee temporarily faces unemployment until the company is able to reopen.

To overcome the issue, the state and federal government has implemented increasingly available opportunities to apply for unemployment benefits.

In Kansas, to apply for benefits, one must access the Kansas Department of Labor’s “Benefits” page to file an application to deem if he or she is eligible.

Based off of previous wages, the state will determine the weekly amount a person will receive, and the person must refile every week.

“Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), which provides an additional $600 weekly payment for unemployment insurance claimants, went live starting Thursday, April 23,” the Kansas Department of Labor website states.

Due to the amount of unemployed people during the pandemic, the benefit websites have had difficulties processing each and every claim, though Kansas is still attempting to continue monitoring the website and keeping people informed of all updates on new programs and legislation.

20ahillebrand@usd489.com