Agency snowed under jobless claims

Employment officials call in retirees, other state workers to help

For weeks, the workers at California’s Employment Development Department have seen up close the unprecedented tsunami of jobless claims wash across the state.

In a little more than three weeks, the department received 1.9 million unemployment insurance claims as workers lose jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. That’s just shy of the 2.2. million claims processed during the 2008 Great Recession.

“We’re used to being very busy in a recessionary period, but this is like nothing we’ve been doing before,” said Loree Levy, EDD’s deputy director of public affairs. “We’re all working around the clock; we’re getting very little sleep.”

But unlike previous recessions, this rush of claims has come all at once. And the rush is a big change for a state that until recently had record low unemployment rates.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Twitter Q&A that the agency is getting an average of 111,000 unemployment claims a day — 44 times the previous daily average. The

“We’re all pretty exhausted, but we all also understand how important this is for so many of our neighbors. It’s all hands on decks.”

— Loree Levy, EDD’s deputy director of public affairs

demand has “overwhelmed the system,” he said.

In response, the department is bringing in around 850 workers from throughout state government who have experience processing unemployment claims and it’s calling in recent retirees.

The department also is trying to hire workers, but the required training can take several months, Levy said. That’s time the department doesn’t have.

And the flood of claims has come just as EDD is transitioning 8,000 of its employees to working from home and implementing a massive federal aid program that will give unemployed workers an additional $600 a week and extend their benefits for 13 weeks.

“We’re all pretty exhausted, but we all also understand how important this is for so many of our neigh

bors,” Levy said. “It’s all hands on decks.”

Assemblyman Ash Kalra, the San Jose Democrat who heads the Labor Committee, said Newsom and EDD are committed to getting money to people as quickly as possible, although some Californians are unsure about who is eligible or may be confused about how to apply.

“The challenge of navigating the application process and the manner that questions on the application are designed, that hasn’t necessarily caught up with the urgent actions the state has taken,” Kalra said.

So far, EDD says, it has kept close to its typical three-week turnaround from when people file a claim to when they receive their first payment, thanks in part to streamlined requirements that let the department move through more applications automatically.

Levy says people are likely to get a quicker response if they file a claim online rather than calling or mailing it in. EDD’s call center is open only from 8 a.m. to noon, when those workers switch over to help process claims.

Levy also suggests Californians filing for assistance stick with the default payment option from a state-issued debit card; checks are a much slower option, she says.

While the system hasn’t yet crashed, she recommends those who are stymied when trying to file online wait a little while and try again.

Implementing the new federal CARES Act, for coronavirus relief, has been a challenge, with the department trying to understand and execute its part of a nearly 900-page bill. EDD is hoping to roll that out soon, doing in days what usually would take months.

Besides higher unemployment payments and an expanded eligibility window, the new act includes a Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for selfemployed workers and independent contractors. EDD is waiting for federal guidance on how to distribute those funds.

“There’s only so much you can do without magic,” Levy said.

Still, she said she understands how difficult it is for people who are facing the start of the month without work and with few resources.

Kalra said his staff has been working with constituents to try to find them any available resources.

“Being unemployed and having to deal with this health care crisis is really a double whammy that is putting a lot of pressure on families, especially those with children,” the assemblyman said, adding that he’d like the state to further expand access to sick pay and family leave, among other worker protections.

He said he’s working on a bill addressing that, which he’ll introduce whenever he’s able to return to Sacramento.

In the meantime, Levy said, EDD employees have been working overtime and on weekends. No one observed the March 31 Cesar Chavez Day state holiday.

“Things are just happening so quickly,” she said. “I think we experienced a month just in the last week.”