Problems from the surge of jobless claims reflect years of cutbacks and greater restrictions on eligibility.
As the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits grew by nearly 4 million in just the last week, it’s little surprise that the systems charged with responding are overwhelmed.
“People are selling their cars, they’re trying to get help delaying their car payments,” said Terry Brewington, the United Steelworkers local leader at the Goodyear plant in Fayetteville, N.C. “You can’t make up when you’re already behind.”It’s not that Washington failed to see the hardships that an unprecedented surge in unemployment would bring. U.S. lawmakers and some in the Trump administration knew there were deficiencies in the unemployment program.
So when millions of people suddenly lost jobs, hotlines created to help jobless workers navigate the systems froze up. Jenni Propst, 43, lost her work as a lighting technician in Charlotte, N.C., in mid-March. She filed for benefits on March 17, staying up nearly all night because the online system was overloaded and kept freezing up. Getting through to the call center, she said, was hopeless. Finally, in the middle of the night, she finished the application.It wasn’t until one month and two days later that Propst got her first unemployment check.
In Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and a few other states, only 1 out of 10 jobless workers ended up collecting unemployment benefits in the days before COVID-19. That compares with 4 or 5 out of 10 in Massachusetts, New Jersey and California, among others.
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