The slow and methodical process of reopening the state is underway.
The construction industry has a green light to restart on May 1, and Gov. Tom Wolf has laid out a phased county-by-county plan to reopen the state on May 8.
But six weeks after Pennsylvania shuttered its economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of state residents continue to struggle to collect unemployment compensation benefits.
Legions of workers who have been laid off or furloughed say it remains impossible to reach the state’s unemployment compensation office: The phone lines are forever busy, the online services crash under the weight of demand and email communications with the system is unresponsive.
The level of frustration and anger among residents who have reached out to PennLive desperate for assistance or answers from state officials is palpable, particularly after state officials this week held a press conference vowing that response times have improved and that the backlog for pins had been resolved.
“It did leave me with some unanswered questions and concerns about what Labor & Industry officials are telling Pennsylvanians,” said Jeremy Jordan, who has been trying to call the unemployment compensation office at the Department of Labor & Industry since April 13.
He has had no success.
“When you call the phone number that is plastered all over the unemployment compensation website all you get is a busy signal, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.” said Jordan, an auto sales representative from Hummelstown. “A busy signal for over a week straight, so how exactly are they improving their response time to phone calls if no Pennsylvanian can call them?”
Jordan emailed the unemployment compensation office on April 16 and was informed that the average response time was 17 days.
Pennsylvania this week surpassed 1.5 million unemployment compensation claims filed since March 15, when the state rolled out coronavirus mitigation efforts. The spike in applications has put unprecedented stress on the system, but state Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak on Monday assured residents that the department was addressing the problems and obstacles hindering residents from resolving claims issues.
Oleksiak said the department had bolstered the ranks of staff assigned to unemployment compensation claims - online and on the phone - and was working to improve the response time to phone and email inquiries from state residents.
But legions of state residents who have been trying for weeks to collect their benefits or even resolve issues with their claims find that assessment disingenuous.
“I‘m just trying to stay positive,” said Angelita Wynn, who has tracked the number of calls she has placed to the unemployment compensation office.
As of Thursday morning, Wynn had logged 760 calls.
“I have spent a whole day from 8 o’clock to 4 o’clock calling, trying to get through but the phone is busy. I even called the hearing impaired office thinking I could try to be slick. I couldn’t get through that number either.”
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Wynn has been trying to get connected with anyone at the state office since late March, when she was laid off from her job as a school bus driver. At one point, she got through via email but was informed that she faced a 22-day wait period to hear a response.
Wynn said she is desperate. She is a single mom of a 7-year-old daughter, and is concerned she is close to not being able to meet her obligations on rent, gas, electric and her car payment.
“Thank you Jesus we have a food bank in Duquesne,” said Wynn, who lives outside of Pittsburgh. “I waited two hours for two boxes of food. Thank you Jesus that we have these other systems that are supporting us. I would starve, literally, if I had to wait for 22 days, which is the response I got to my email request for help. You have to wait 22 days for a response. I would starve. My daughter and I would starve.”
Jordan’s experience is a far cry from that scenario.
“Are you kidding me?” Jordan said. “Now I get on the unemployment compensation website this morning and the average response time is now 21 calendar days!”
Pennsylvania, like the majority of states, has experienced a tidal wave of unemployment compensation claims as the pandemic shuttered states economies, prompting wide scale layoffs and furloughs. The U.S. Labor Department this week said that 4.4 million Americans had filed for compensation in the previous week, bringing the national total to 22 million people.
To put Pennsylvania numbers into perspective: In comparison to the 1.5 million unemployment compensation claims filed since March 15, the state logged 40,000 new claims in the three weeks prior to March 13.
While the Wolf administration has unveiled plans to phase out the statewide lockdown of the economic sector, cases of coronavirus continue to increase across the state. On Thursday, Pennsylvania health officials reported 1,369 new coronavirus cases, raising the statewide total to 37,053. Confirmed deaths due to the virus stood at 1,394.
PennLive made repeated attempts to speak with someone at Labor & Industry, but as of Thursday afternoon had not heard back from officials.
Wolf on Thursday said he was not satisfied with the performance of the unemployment compensation system - and neither was the Department of Labor & Industry.
“We are working day and night to figure out how to turn everything around," the governor said.
More than $1 billion has been paid out in unemployment claims, Wolf said. Wolf said the department has hired more workers to handle claims and invested in new technology to improve the system.
The governor said he understood the frustration of those who have had trouble reaching the labor department.
Across Pennsylvania legions of state residents have expressed frustration at the amount of time and effort required to connect with an unemployment compensation system that has been overwhelmed as a result of the pandemic induced record-shattering unemployment numbers.
Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation system underwent deep cuts in funding and staffing in the wake of a 2016 funding stand-off between Wolf and the Republican-led Senate. In the aftermath, the Department of Labor and Industry closed call centers and furloughed 500 workers.
Jordan and Wynn are just two among hundreds of thousands of state residents concerned that state officials are misrepresenting the deep inefficiencies in the system.
Susan Jacobson, a policy director for Labor & Industry, said earlier this week pin numbers had been assigned to biweekly claims and that there should not be any more backlogs. According to the Labor & Industry’s website, pin numbers are mailed out after 7-10 days and the financial determination letters are sent out after about two weeks.
Jordan, who filed for benefits on March 29, has yet to receive his pin or even a financial determination letter.
“I have received absolutely nothing from the unemployment compensation office,” Jordan said. “No pin, no financial determination letter and no phone call or email from the office saying there is an issue with my claim.”
Jordan and Wynn have been trying to resolve their benefits issues for about the same length of time. Both say they get nothing but an endless parade of busy signals; unresponsive email exchanges and pop-up windows informing them that the Live Chat feature on the PAUC website is unavailable.
“There is never an available representative,” Jordan said.
Wynn hasn’t touched her federal stimulus money out of fear that things will get worse. She constantly worries about feeding her daughter and paying her rent.
“My landlady wants her money,” she said.
Wynn confessed to feeling angry and disappointed at the news account this week of fellow state residents protesting at the Capitol demanding Wolf reopen the state for business.
“I am trying to be empathetic,” she said. “I’m trying to be patient and trying to be understanding but when I see people protesting to open up the economy, I think to myself, why aren’t people protesting the state of unemployment benefits? Why aren’t people protesting that we can’t have access to a benefit that we have earned? I wish I could go and protest this. I can’t. I don’t want to expose my daughter to a virus. I want to protest but I don’t want to use the funds that I have on gas to go drive to Harrisburg.”
Wynn fears she is getting desperate.
“I am overwhelmed with frustration and anger because I was already angry,” she said. “I work every day and I struggle to put food on the table and stay independent and self sufficient, and then something happens... something that is beyond my control and has something to do with me and it knocks my world off its axis and I‘m suffering even more. There is no word for how frustrated I am. I am bubbling like a volcano.”
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