‘They said they’d be here for us’
Many self-employed Wisconsinites still waiting on unemployment benefits, months after applying
Many self-employed Wisconsinites are still waiting for word on unemployment payments.
Ariel Krause has been struggling to make ends meet for nearly 22 weeks.
On March 1, news of the coronavirus forced her to shut down her cleaning company, Magic Rags Cleaning in Mount Pleasant. She has an autoimmune disease and a 9-year-old at home and didn’t want to risk bringing home a sickness that could land her in a hospital.
She knew that she wouldn’t qualify for regular unemployment, so she waited until April 21 to apply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program aimed at helping those who may not qualify for normal unemployment payments, according to the Department of Workforce Development.
The program provides up to 39 weeks of benefits to the self-employed, independent contractors, those with limited recent work history and others who fall within the guidelines provided by the department. PUA provides a minimum of $163 a week to a maximum of $370, according to the department.
Krause said she immediately filed all her necessary paperwork, including taxes and statements showing her earnings at her business. Since then, she’s heard little from the Department of Workforce Development and has been living off savings and her fiancé’s pay from his job.
“It’s a complete failure on their end,” she said. “They could do something to help us.”
Working to quell the backlog
Krause isn’t alone in facing a long wait for her PUA case to be looked at and decided.
Since the creation of the program, the state has received 91,077 applications
and processed 40,573, said Ben Jedd, communications director for the department. The department processed about 10,873 PUA claims last week alone and they’re being processed in the order that they came in.
The program was the last to be established in Wisconsin’s system after the state removed its one-week waiting period before unemployment benefits can be applied for and then established the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program. Because of the software that Wisconsin utilizes, all of the unemployment programs had to be implemented one at a time.
Jedd also noted that as soon as the system was established and ready to take claims, about 40,000 people applied in the first week.
He said that by default, the determination process for PUA also takes longer because, while regular unemployment is mostly automated, PUA is entirely manual. That means all claims need to be handled and determined by an adjudicator, resulting in cases piling up.
And, Jedd said, in some cases, those filing for PUA must first be denied for regular unemployment. If a case needs adjudication in that step, there may be even more of a delay.
The pileup of PUA cases is on top of the massive backlog in processing regular unemployment claims.
According to department data, more than 4.9 million weekly regular unemployment claims had been filed in Wisconsin as of July 25 and 4.3 million have been paid. More than 561,000 have been denied, with 593,037 claims still in process and awaiting adjudication, breaking down to 93,939 individuals, according to department data.
That is slightly down from the last count, which ended July 18, and had 138,485 individuals.
Jedd said with more employees on staff at the department than at the beginning of the pandemic, things should speed up.
“As the number and experience of our PUA staff have increased, so has their efficiency in processing the claims,” he said.
‘There’s nothing I can do about it’
But even with more claims being processed, Wisconsinites are still worried that they may never see any sort of relief in the midst of the pandemic.
Perry Holzman of Two Rivers said he filed for unemployment on April 24, fully knowing that he wouldn’t qualify for the normal unemployment program, but hoping that he would be able to start the process of qualifying for PUA.
Holzman drives for the ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft, in addition to owning another business, he said. But he had to stop driving after March 2 because he had fallen ill with what he believed was COVID-19.
He showed symptoms for about two months, then needed additional time to recover, as his body was weakened by the virus, he said. Though he’s better now, going out and driving is a huge risk for him at age 63.
Previously, he was an engineer and then provided consulting in the same industry until his mother fell ill in 2018 and he had to care for her. He knew his complicated work history could cause delays, but he didn’t think it would take this long to find out if he could even access benefits, he said.
Being sick caused him to apply a few days after the program opened, Holzman said. He figured it might take a bit of time to process, but now it’s been months.
He and his wife have burned through their savings and though he has tried to go back to work driving, he’s worried about getting sick again. So he keeps waiting to see if he qualifies for PUA as a self-employed worker.
“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said. “Money is tight, our lives have been affected.”
For Holzman and Krause, getting through to DWD on the phone at first meant calling the same inundated unemployment line that regular filers use but has become easier since the establishment of a separate PUA line.
Krause said she could never get through to a real person using the regular unemployment hotline, but has been able to talk to people on the PUA hotline, though they haven’t been able to help her figure out what’s taking so long. The separate hotline was opened after the establishment of the PUA program for the state.
“One person told me that she honestly had no idea what she was doing,” Krause said.
Nicole Etter of Elm Grove has faced the same issue. She filed for PUA on April 27 after being denied regular unemployment. Though she now works as a sales manager, she was self-employed last year. She’s been calling to try to explain her situation to those responsible for determining cases but is met with operators who aren’t able to help at that level.
“The people on the phone, they don’t know the rules or regulations,” she said. “When I call, I know more than they do.”
DWD has said call center employees are trained only to help with filing claims, not resolving those that remain unpaid.
‘This is pushing things a bit’
While dealing with frustrations like the phone lines and weeks of waiting is bad, those waiting are also dealing with the fear of the virus or losing their homes or not being able to pay bills.
“I’m an older dude, I don’t panic as easy as the young ones,” Holzman said. “Though this is pushing things a bit.”
Talking about her wait to hear back from the department is hard for Krause and makes her emotional. She had to permanently shut down her business, as none of her commercial clients are allowing outside people into buildings now and many of her residential customers are older and are also afraid of the virus.
“There’s nothing I can do. All my clients are on lockdown. Even if I wanted to, I can’t go back,” she said.
She said she’s considered applying for other jobs but is so worried about getting seriously ill, it’s held her back. It’s not easy deciding to risk her and her family’s health because she hasn’t yet received word about her unemployment benefits. She feels forgotten in a system she’s paid into since her first job at 15.
“They said they’d be here for us,” she said. “They have no compassion because they’re not going through it.”