I have no doubt that behind the scenes federal officials have told a lot of state officials that if they give out unemployment benefits that the feds will screw over the states financially with’errors’, ‘glitches’, and ‘legal battles’. The authoritarian nature of this regime is unambiguous. They would resort to mass blackmail in a heartbeat.
I just checked the state unemployment website and it said there that I would still qualify for unemployment benefits. We’ll see if it comes to that.