The Government announced recently a new scheme ( Covid 19 Relief Payment) to financially support employees who have lost their jobs through redundancies due to the Covid-19 Pandemic.
The payments will be administered by Work and Income and will help people who have lost their job since March 1 while they are looking for new work or retraining
Depending on whether someone is a part time or fulltime worker they will receive either $250.00 or $490.00 per week tax free for 12 weeks.
Who is eligible?
To receive the Income Relief Payment, you must be a New Zealand citizen or a resident who normally works and lives in New Zealand, and you must have lost your job between March 1 and October 30 2020.
Payments will only begin after June 8 and won’t be retrospectively paid so, if you lost your job before June 8, you won’t be back-paid.
Who is not eligible?
You will not be eligible if you receive a redundancy payment of $30,000 before tax or more, income protection insurance payments or earnings-related ACC payments.
You also cannot receive the payments if you receive a main benefit at the same time. However, if you are eligible for the Income Relief Payment, you can opt to receive that instead of the main benefit.
Someone with a partner who is working can still be eligible for the payment, as long as their partner is earning less than $2000 per week
You can find more information on the payments on the Work and Income website.
https://workandincome.govt.nz/covid-19/income-relief-payment/index.html
