A slew of factors have led to painful lags in getting financial aid into the hands of record numbers of unemployed workers.
Rick Bowmer/APPeople line up outside the Utah Department of Workforce Services in Salt Lake City on Monday.Crashing servers, outmoded software and overloaded call centers are some of the obstacles standing between millions of unemployed workers and the financial lifeline the government has promised under the $2 trillion relief package approved late last month.
Meanwhile, state agencies say a large part of what is causing the technology problems leading to delays is the avalanche of newly eligible applicants that have overwhelmed existing systems. The crush of calls and online applications have proved to be too much for outdated benefit programs running on old software and under-staffed call centers.
When Ted got through, he was told what he already knew: that he is eligible for $600 per week under one provision of the CARES Act, and up to an additional $600 per week under the Act's Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for those who do not normally qualify for traditional unemployment insurance.
But applicants have apparently been reluctant to answer calls from a strange phone number. On Monday, during his daily press conference, Cuomo urged people to pick up the phone. Once those guidelines were issued, Su said the state's Employment Development Department began working on creating a new PUA program.
"At the time that COVID-19 hit it was one of those times," she said."We had seen a decades-long, year-over-year growth in our economy, so it was a time of lower staff to begin with." Su added that earlier this week California became one of the first states to start sending an additional $600 of weekly unemployment compensation approved by Congress under the CARES Act, separate from the PUA.
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