Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly promised to fix New York's archaic unemployment-insurance system, which has been overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of claims.The state has teamed up with Google to overhaul the online application, added thousands of workers at call centers while expanded call-volume
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly promised to fix New York’s archaic unemployment-insurance system, which has been overwhelmed by an unprecedented wave of claims.
As the coronavirus pandemic and near-nationwide stay-at-home orders exact an astonishing toll on the U.S. economy, state unemployment systems have cratered under a never-before-seen deluge of jobless claims. In the past four weeks, about 22 million workers filed jobless claims, including about 1.2 million New Yorkers.
Story continuesIn other states, including Kansas and Missouri, applicants say that they are still waiting for unemployment payments to arrive, and that they have experienced long wait times on the phone, as well as busy signals, disconnections and error-prone online applications. Without unemployment assistance, they have relied on friends, family and savings, if they have any, to survive.
A Labor Department spokesman said Friday that after the agency made changes to its unemployment system, including updating its application, its call center had made more than 470,000 follow-up calls to New Yorkers who had not submitted completed claims. The $2.2 trillion federal stimulus that Congress passed last month set aside especially generous benefits for those who recently lost jobs: $600 a week on top of what states offer for unemployment.
Jennifer Walsh, a self-employed hair stylist in upstate New York who stopped working on March 14, submitted her application more than two weeks ago. She is still waiting to be denied. State officials said Friday that the federal government was requiring New York state to confirm that those workers were not eligible for traditional unemployment before processing their claims for pandemic assistance. The state is working to create a single unemployment application for such workers.
A Key Bank representative did not immediately respond to questions about its unemployment benefits card. Other states, including Washington and Indiana, also disperse unemployment assistance onto the bank’s cards.
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