File an unemployment claim and still waiting? California says it will expedite older cases
The state’s unemployment agency, under fire from frustrated lawmakers struggling to help constituents get their jobless payments, said it will give special attention to people who filed claims in March and April and still have received no benefits.
But the new policy, contained in an email sent to lawmakers, offers no precise timetables for getting cases resolved.. The agency said it has additional staff working on the requests.
“All of these more complex cases require manual analysis, and that’s what can take a while as we continue to staff up with the additional federal funding that we’ve finally received.,” said Employment Development Department spokeswoman Loree Levy.
The department has been overwhelmed as it tries to answer Assembly members and senators’ requests from out of work constituents who are pleading for help. Last month, EDD said it would handle one hardship case per week per legislator, but backed off that plan after widespread complaints.
Key lawmakers had mixed reactions to the new policy.
“This isn’t any better for people who have been waiting,” said Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno. “I don’t see anything here that changes the end result.”
Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, and Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, were more upbeat. They hosted a news conference last week featuring constituents who have had a difficult time reaching EDD, and Chiu one of the leading critics of the one-hardship-case policy.
Wiener called the new policy “a positive step forward. It shows a commitment to helping people who are struggling in a very significant way.”
Chiu called it “a welcome change that prioritizes constituents who have been waiting for benefits for months.”
But asked how the policy was a change from what the department has been doing, spokeswoman Jennifer Kwart said, “They have said they are going to expedite these older cases, but I don’t know if they are just returning to policy prior to the hardship memo and will continue to slowly get to all of these old cases or if they are going to process these ‘expedited’ cases in a quicker manner.
“We don’t really have clarity on that,” she said.
People have been inundating phone lines of the department, lawmakers and The Sacramento Bee with stories of how they filed for unemployment months ago and not only are awaiting benefits, but find it difficult to reach the agency on the phone.
The department’s Levy explained that as part of the “evolving effort to partner with legislative staff for investigating the status of some more complex cases requiring manual analysis, we did let them know during our bi-weekly conference call on June 26, that we would be updating our process per their feedback. “
The agency had been working with many legislative office and claimant referrals on a first-in, first-out basis, and had already redirected 45 staffers to work through the referrals. The department had staff working over the Independence Day holiday weekend to help make progress on the workload.
The agency now has another 48 working on the new process. Information is coming to the agency on a password protected spreadsheet. That process, said Levy, “will help us more efficiently pull claim information needed for follow up. “
The department has been handling historically high claim volumes since the coronavirus pandemic ignited an economic recession unlike any since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Unemployed workers have received $37.5 billion in payments since the downturn began in mid-March. More than 7 million claims have been processed, nearly double the claim amount in 2010, the unemployment peak of the last recession.
The new policy, contained in a memo sent to legislators, aims to expedite the process, though it promises no timetable for the cases to be resolved.
In the memo, the agency says it “has implemented a recent recommendation from legislative staff to further expedite the resolution of your older cases. Specifically, these are cases where the individuals filed for unemployment in March or April and have not received an Unemployment Insurance benefit payment recently.”
The memo explains “We have developed a template for you to provide these cases to us – please see attached.”
It asks the lawmakers to “please designate one staff member in your office who will email the list to us” and gives addresses.
No mention is made of any timetables. The memo ends by saying, “Thank you for your continued partnership. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions.”
Patterson, who has requested a state audit of the unemployment agency, had a lot of questions. “It’s like a ship is sinking, and we’ve been handed a teaspoon,” he said.
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 3:07 PM with the headline "File an unemployment claim and still waiting? California says it will expedite older cases."
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