With a choppy start to its unemployment filing system for self-employed workers, Connecticut has now received nearly a half-million applications for benefits since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, putting the state on a trajectory for a jobless rate exceeding 20 percent, according to the state’s labor commissioner.

The Connecticut Department of Labor activated on Thursday the second element of a two-step process for independent workers to receive unemployment compensation, adding a red button to the claims website at www.filectui.com that allows them to complete their applications.

Self-employed workers were not allowed until last week to start the process of applying for jobless benefits, with the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act having expanded unemployment compensation to most categories of earners under a new program.

Commissioner Kurt Westby said Connecticut’s jobless rate was 18.7 percent as of mid-April, with self-employed people having yet to get authorization at that point to put in applications.

“The April U.S. [Department of Labor] report ... due [Friday] is expected to show a jobless rate deep into the double digits — maybe even as high as 20 percent,” Westby said Thursday on a weekly conference call with media outlets. “Connecticut should easily be within that same 20-percent range.”

Westby added the state has now processed 426,000 claims, representing about nine of every 10 it has received — a marked improvement from only a few weeks ago when it had handled only half of the claims that had come in to that point. The state has paid out more than $1 billion in benefits since Gov. Ned Lamont’s emergency declaration on March 10 that put in motion a series of restrictions on many businesses.

Under a winding process implemented by the U.S. Department of Labor, self-employed workers are being required to file for unemployment assistance at the state DOL websites. They then are being referred to a federal website, which sends an authorization allowing them to apply anew on the state websites using the new red button.

Connecticut’s deputy DOL commissioner noted Thursday that the initial compensation checks for self-employed workers will be for the minimum amount of nearly $800 and additional amounts for dependents, with the possibility of catch-up payments of up to $450 more, depending on average incomes prior to February, after consultation with the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services.

“If we find that someone, through their tax returns, is actually eligible for more than the minimum, ... then we will adjust accordingly,” said Dante Bartolomeo, deputy DOL commissioner. “If within the first 21 days they want to provide us with documentation aside from an actual filing of ther tax returns, they can do that — they can do check stubs, bank receipts, business records, ledgers, contracts, billing statements. We will take that all into account ... and provide them with the retro payments.”

Bartomoleo acknowledged continued frustration by some claimants who are receiving a “lock out” message due to varying errors entering information, which causes the Connecticut system to place a hold on the process until a staff member can resolve the impasse.

“We are monitoring lock outs, we are monitoring the emails and we are adjusting ... as we are alerted,” she said. “The federal system — is something that no state has had, because there is no [unemployment insurance] for self-employed typically because they are not paying into the unemployment system.”