People who are out of work in D.C., Virginia and Maryland should prepare for weeks of delays to get unemployment benefits as new federal aid gets processed by local agencies, labor experts and local officials say.

The hiccup — which they say is likely after President Donald Trump delayed his signing of a congressional stimulus bill — could add more sting to the pain of lengthy unemployment during winter while COVID-19 cases are on the rise and as government agencies and nonprofits struggle to help the needy.

“I think there may be a delay of at least a week, maybe a few, while the states program their systems,” said attorney Tonya Love of the Metropolitan Washington Council AFL-CIO.

Love said people should expect to receive a final payment of their unemployment benefits this week before entering into a period of limbo. Fallon Peare, a spokesperson with the Maryland Department of Labor, confirmed that residents could expect their regular payments to end after this week.

“[The Maryland Department of] Labor is currently reviewing the legislation and awaiting guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor on how the CARES Act program extensions should be implemented in Maryland,” Peare wrote DCist/WAMU in an email. “States cannot move forward without this guidance and it is unlikely the guidance will be issued before the end of the month.”

Joyce Fogg, a spokesperson for the Virginia Employment Commission, said in an email to DCist that her agency is working to implement the new federal law and plans to issue an update on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Employment Services said it is reviewing the new federal pandemic relief package and preparing changes to its system.

“As was the case with previous federal unemployment programs, DOES must receive guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor before it can fully implement the changes and begin issuing payments,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “While we are unlikely to receive this guidance before January 2021, DOES is working to ensure our ability to act as soon as we do.”

The Washington region continues to suffer high unemployment unleashed by the pandemic. In the latest figures available in November, the unemployment rate in D.C. was 7.5%. It was 6.8% in Maryland and 4.9% in Virginia, numbers far higher than a year before. Maryland’s rate, for instance, is double rate from November 2019.

The initial package of economic relief programs that Congress passed in March expired on Saturday. Nevertheless, lawmakers debated a new relief bill until days before the deadline, and President Trump refused to sign their bill until Sunday night.

Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the new relief package offered some good news: the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation that boosted unemployment payments by $600 a week before it ended in late July will now return, albeit with only $300 a week in benefits. The relief bill will also extend unemployment benefits for gig workers and contractors. Further, he said, people whose benefits ran out ahead of the Dec. 26 sunset date could now reapply for benefits and receive an additional 11 weeks.

However, Stettner said, it could be “perhaps well into January” before people receive those benefits. “States have never had to serve so many people and operate so many different programs at the same time,” he said.

He said the late passage of the bill guaranteed a disruption.

“That delayed signing forced the states to begin the process of starting to roll people off the benefits, because they legally ended Saturday night,” he said. “They had to roll everybody off and now they’ve got to roll everyone on. So they added a lot of complexity to the situation.”

Michele Evermore, senior researcher at the National Employment Law Project, echoed Stettner’s analysis that Trump’s delay could trigger a gap in benefits.

“There would be a lot less uncertainty if he would have just have signed it the day before,” she said.

The delay comes as the region’s unemployed — and the agencies that help them — are already stretched thin. Attorney Drake Hagner of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia said that although she warned her clients their benefits might end, they were strapped to cover their bills — let alone save for an emergency.

“I have two clients who are living out of their cars,” she said. “Many are scared to access shelters at a time when COVID is running rampant. It’s a very desperate time.”

Getting unemployment payments has been a struggle for some as hundreds of thousands of people overwhelmed the region’s unemployment agencies. Thousands of D.C. residents reported delays of weeks or months. This month, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) ordered the state to pay unemployment benefits to 70,000 people whose applications had been delayed. Maryland overhauled its software for processing unemployment claims during the pandemic, and the program crashed within hours of launch under the weight of incoming claims.

Attorney Love at the AFL-CIO said she was advising her clients to keep filing for benefits even if they face a delay, and to speak with their landlords, utility companies and other creditors to try to buy time for making payments.

“Everybody’s at their wit’s end,” she said.

Further, she said the employment woes in the region needed more than money. Parents still cannot leave their children behind in order to work while school is remote. Some people who were infected with COVID-19 are still recovering.

“It’s going to require a more holistic fix,” she said.