Tens of thousands of Virginians who lost their jobs, but whose applications for unemployment benefits remain in limbo, are about to get their money.

Gov. Ralph S. Northam on Tuesday ordered the Virginia Employment Commission to distribute unemployment checks to the 40,000 to 50,000 people whose cases are still being adjudicated.

Many are still waiting for the VEC to hear and make a determination of their eligibility or to eliminate inaccurate information from their file.

The governor’s action means those individuals will get paid, with VEC able to later seek to recover the money if the benefits turned out to be improperly paid.

About 1.4 million people in Virginia have filed for unemploy- ment since March, according to the governor’s office, or more than 10 times the approximately 140,000 claims filed in 2019.

While the governor praised the VEC for distributing “more than $9.7 billion in federal and state benefits since the start

of the pandemic, which has helped hundreds of thousands of Virginians get through these hard times,” he noted that the new order will put such benefits in the hands of workers who have been left out and desperately need assistance.

In addition, the governor’s order allows businesses to escape an increase in the unemployment rating tax due to layoffs resulting from the pandemic between April and June 30, when the state’s 2019-20 fiscal year ended.

Private employers pay the tax to support unemployment insur- ance. Collectively, they were to pay an additional $200 million next year as a result of the increase in unemployment during that three- month period in 2020 to help the state’s trust fund recover.

The governor and General Assembly put an additional $200 million into the trust fund to help mitigate the impact. Companies that have laid off workers since July 1 likely will be looking for similar help next year when the tax is adjusted for the 2020-21 fiscal year.