The federal government has, as of April 6, started accepting applications for the new Canada Emergency Response Benefit for workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
CERB pays $2,000 every four weeks for up to four months to workers who have lost all of their income as a result of COVID-19. The benefit is open both to Canadians who qualify for employment insurance (EI) and those who don’t, including employees who don’t have enough work hours to meet EI requirements and the self-employed.
Am I eligible for CERB?
To be eligible for CERB you must:
- Be a Canadian resident
- Be at least 15 years old when you apply
- Have lost all of your income for reasons related to COVID-19. This includes being laid off or seeing business dry up because of the economic consequences of the pandemic. It also includes losing the ability to earn money because you are sick with the novel coronavirus, quarantined, caring for someone with COVID-19 or looking after children who are either sick with the virus or home from school and daycare. Note that you don’t need to have been laid off to qualify for CERB. If you’re not receiving income from your employer, you can apply for CERB even if you are still formally employed.
- You earned at least $5,000 in income in the last 12 months or in 2019 from work (whether employment or self-employment) or from maternity and parental benefits (whether EI or through Quebec’s Parental Insurance Plan).
- You have — or expect to have — no income from the above-listed sources for at least 14 days in a row of the initial four-week period for which you are applying. You must also expect to continue to have zero income due to COVID-19 in order to continue to re-apply for the benefit.
- If you also qualify for EI regular unemployment or sickness benefits: if you became eligible for EI on March 15, 2020, or later, your claim will automatically be processed for CERB. Notably, you will get CERB even if you’d normally receive more than $2,000 a month under EI. On the other hand, everyone who would receive less than $2,000 through EI will get a pay bump through the new benefit. Also, CERB will not eat into your EI entitlement. After four months of CERB, you could still receive EI benefits for however many weeks you’d be eligible for regardless of CERB.
Source: globalnews.ca