Jobless claims backlog shoots up

State’s unemployed feeling pinch as logjam hits highest levels in 2 months

A vast pile of backlogged unemployment claims in California has swollen to its highest levels in more than two months — a revelation that adds to the brutal burdens facing jobless workers in the wake of coronavirus-linked economic woes.

An estimated 810,750 unemployment claims filed by California workers were stuck in the Employment Development Department’s bureaucratic logjam as of Jan. 13, this news organization’s analysis of posted EDD data shows. That was a 57% increase from the prior week.

The backlog consists of two categories:

• 786,440 claims by workers who filed a first-time unemployment claim but have been waiting more than 21 days to receive their first payment or be told they don’t qualify for any benefits.

These are officially known as initial claims.

• 24,310 claims by workers who received at least one payment but have been waiting more than 21 days to receive an additional payment or notification from the EDD that they don’t qualify for further payments. These are known as continuing claims.

Unemployed workers have continued to complain of a glitchy website and an unresponsive call center. Those complaints have continued despite the EDD adding hundreds of workers and new technology designed to automate and streamline the claims process.

Making matters even worse are the disclosures of widespread fraud that has engulfed the EDD payments system, a problem that is so severe that the EDD suspended payments on 1.4 million unemployment claims.

The total backlog of claims as of Jan. 13 is the most since Nov. 4, when the backlog was 890,185.

The EDD’s backlog had dwindled dramatically during the week that ended on Jan. 6, totaling 515,960. That was the lowest number for the backlog since the EDD began to officially track and report the logjam.

In an attempt to whittle away the backlog and make permanent progress to combat it, the EDD even paused for roughly two weeks in late September the processing of unemployment claims in a quest to catch up once and for all.

For some time, it appeared the EDD’s gambit was succeeding. Following the two-week pause, the backlog decreased for six consecutive weeks.

But for seven of the last nine weeks, the backlog has increased, including the jump for the week that ended on Jan. 13.