The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations is now accepting applications to distribute federal pandemic unemployment assistance.

The program can be accessed at pua.hawaii.gov. The website is accepting pre-applications and processing is expected around May 15.

Rona Suzuki, director of the Hawaii Department of Taxation, said the PUA site was soft launched two days ago and as of this morning had received 2,853 applications.

“Please know that this is a pre-application process it’s not the processing of the claim. We are still working on all the configurations necessary to process that claim,” Suzuki said.

The new development was announced by Gov. David Ige at his afternoon news conference today when he also spoke about the start of a phased reopening of Hawaii’s economy.

The federal funds, which were approved as part of the CARES Act, offer support for self- employed, independent contractors, gig economy workers and freelancers.

The PUA program also might cover some people who are seeking part-time work, lack sufficient work history or otherwise don’t qualify for regular unemployment compensation or extended benefits.

DLIR had hoped to allow PUA applicants who had already claims in the state system to transfer them into the new system. However, DLIR spokesman William Kunstman said all PUA claimants, even those who made prior claims, will need to file through the new online form as there are divergent data fields.

PUA applicants likely make up some of the 33,272 unemployment insurance claims denied by DLIR.

The latest change will help DLIR to bring relief to more Hawaii residents whose income was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic meltdown.

During the April 1-28 benefit period, DLIR still had 180,129 claims to process out of 225,394 unemployment filings. But DLIR did improve its payout ratio to 40% or 72,813 claims. That’s up from less than a third of filings, or 65,252, paid between March 1 and and April 26.