State officials blame computer-programming delays and say they expect the additional money to start going out next week -- along with any retroactive payments that jobless Ohioans should have been receiving since Feb. 22, when the provision took effect.
"It's been very frustrating," said one unemployed Ohioan who asked to be identified by only her middle name, Marie, because she's embarrassed to be out of work.
"I received a phone call back in March telling me I was eligible for the $25 a week."
As of this week, however, no additional payments had arrived because the federal money still hadn't been processed by Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services, which administers the state's unemployment-compensation program.
Many states began distributing the extra money the last week of February or the first week in March.
Brian Harter, a spokesman for the agency, said a number of Ohioans have called to complain about the missing money.
Harter said the temporary benefit bump coincided with a federally funded seven-week extension in unemployment benefits. That, he said, meant the agency had to reprogram its computers twice, and it opted to deal with the extension first.
"If we hadn't done that, there would have been 22,000 Ohioans that weren't getting any unemployment benefits," Harter said. "We wanted to make sure that didn't happen."
Checks reflecting the $25-a-week increase should begin going out by the end of next week, said Angela Terez, a spokeswoman for the Department of Job and Family Services.
Ohioans who fall within the seven-week extension period will get the adjustments first, followed by anyone else who has filed for unemployment.
Dispatch reporter Catherine Candisky contributed to this story.
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