Unemployed workers still stuck in long waits for state benefits
Pennsylvania’s beleaguered unemployment benefits system is reaching fewer than 4 in 10 unemployed workers in the state — a historic low — while lawmakers in Harrisburg have grappled for about nine months with how to prop up the ailing program.
The startling figure surfaced during testimony Tuesday from Sharon Dietrich, a Philadelphia-based employment lawyer who represents low-wage and unemployed workers. Ms. Dietrich was part of a daylong hearing before lawmakers in Harrisburg on the funding shortfall.
In addition, the governor’s budget office told lawmakers that unemployed workers are waiting six to eight weeks on average for an initial decision on their claims, about double the amount of time seen before layoffs of more than 500 people in December who were processing claims.
“There are bottlenecks and backlogs throughout the system,” Ms. Dietrich said in prepared testimony. “The administrative funding shortfall is causing eligible unemployed Pennsylvanians to lose [unemployment compensation] benefits.”
The numbers show that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry continues to struggle to provide basic benefits to unemployed workers amid a prolonged political dispute over funding. In the past two years, almost 500,000 unemployed workers in the state relied on the program for an average income of nearly $400 a week after losing their jobs.
The issue has been with the cost of administering the unemployment compensation program. Funding for the services has historically come from the federal government, but the money available to states has SEE FUNDING, PAGE E-2