State officials say payments to self-employed people and gig workers started flowing on Wednesday as planned, although how many of the tens of thousands of claimants have received money wasn’t immediately clear.

Federal officials announced on Thursday that nearly 65,000 Nevadans have filed claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which assists people who have historically been ineligible for normal state unemployment benefits. While some applicants said Thursday that they are still waiting for the money, officials from the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) confirmed payments started on schedule.

“DETR is working on processing massive payment files to release funds to individuals who filed PUA claims and subsequent weekly claims,” said agency spokeswoman Rosa Mendez. “Payments began rolling out for Individuals who do not have a pending program eligibility issue on their claim beginning Wednesday, May 27th and will continue throughout the week. DETR will continue to process weekly claims in the order that they were received and will release payments accordingly.”

One of the applicants who did receive payment was Frank Seaver, a self-employed sports writer from Las Vegas who has been out of work since the pandemic largely shut down sports. He said 11 weeks of back benefits through PUA were deposited in his account on Wednesday morning, after he got a notification a day before that the payment had been approved.

“It’s a game-changer,” he said.

Seaver said the wait for the program, which was authorized by Congress in late March, has been stressful. While he had enough saved up to pay for groceries and other necessities, he said it had essentially become a full-time job trying to negotiate to get other bills deferred.

“I didn’t hit rock bottom, but it was starting to get thin,” he said.

He had done some legwork ahead of filing his claim on May 16, the day the system launched, including determining his income by quarter. Because sports are seasonal and his income fluctuates, doing the extra math helped him qualify for a higher payment based on the recent quarter when he was paid the most.

Seaver advised others in the same boat of a requirement he was not aware of initially — that claimants need to file not just an initial application, but certifications for each week indicating whether the applicant brought in any income during that period.

The unemployment benefits coming through means Seaver isn’t forced to find a short-term job that could potentially put his health at risk. It buys him some time as he waits for sports to resume — something that’s just beginning with German soccer and is expected to pick up further into the summer. 

“I can immediately pay rent for May and June and take care of other bills,” he said. “I can be patient.”