LINCOLN – Monday, Governor Pete Ricketts held a press conference to announce that the State of Nebraska has extended statewide social distancing restrictions through April 30th. Earlier in March, the State of Nebraska issued social distancing restrictions for the entire state.
In addition to these social distancing restrictions, 30 counties are currently covered by a Directed Health Measure.

At the news conference, Gov. Ricketts detailed new unemployment programs being implemented in Nebraska as a result of federal legislation to aid the pandemic response. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald J. Trump on March 27, 2020. These programs include:

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) – Allows unemployment benefits to individuals who have exhausted all other unemployment benefits, and those not eligible for other unemployment benefits, including workers who are self-employed and independent contractors. The minimum PUA weekly payment will be $174 and top out at $440.
Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) – This emergency increase in Unemployment Insurance Benefits adds $600 per week in federal benefits to the unemployment benefit amount for COVID-19 unemployment claims, including PUA claims.
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) – Allows 13 weeks of federally funded benefits to be added to the end of the normal 26 weeks of benefits.
Short Time Compensation Programs (also known as Work Share) – Provides federal funding of Short-Time Compensation, a program that allows businesses to uniformly reduce their teammates’ hours while the workers receive a partial unemployment benefit

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