California unemployment claims backlog worsens

Laid-off workers continuing to struggle 15 months after lockdowns began

California workers are facing a worsening backlog for their unemployment claims, a reminder that the impact of the economic infection that the coronavirus has unleashed has yet to fully abate.

For well over a year, California workers have complained about an ineffective and unresponsive state Employment Development Department, an embattled government agency that has struggled to pay people the unemployment benefits they’re owed in a timely and efficient manner.

“I’m furious and I’m frustrated,” said Heidi Montoya, a Santa Cruz resident whose unemployment payments were halted by the EDD without notice more than two months ago. “The problem is the overall structure of the EDD. Nobody there gives you the same story when you can actually get through to them.”

Workers statewide lost their jobs in epic numbers during March and April 2020 at the outset of pandemic-linked business shutdowns, which left the California economy struggling to make up for the losses.

For about a year or even longer, the EDD has come under fire from unemployed workers, state lawmakers and the state auditor for an array of failures related to unemployment benefits.

Among the criticisms:

• The EDD has failed to make payments to workers on a timely basis, due in part to a broken phone call center and an outmoded computer system hobbled by glitches.

• The EDD blunders have opened the gates to a flood of fraudulent claims.

By two key measures compiled by the EDD, the backlogs to pay or otherwise resolve unemployment claims have trended upward.

On June 12, the overall logjam to deal with unemployment claims by California workers totaled 1.126 million, up about 1,100 from the bottleneck reported by the EDD for June 5.

The overall backlog is derived from two

numbers in an official dashboard posted by the state EDD:

• Claims for unemployment benefits that have required more than 21 days for the EDD to approve or reject. These totaled 222,559 on June 12, up 1,200 from the week before.

• Claims that are in limbo until the applicant can successfully certify his or her unemployment claim with the EDD. These totaled 903,532, down about 100 from the week before.

The backlog is a fresh jolt for California workers who suffered through job losses that totaled 2.7 million during March and April 2020.

From May 2020 through May 2021, California had recovered only 51.8%, or 1.3 million, of the jobs the state lost over the two months.

In an email a few weeks ago, an EDD spokesperson said the state agency preferred to use the numbers that detail the labor agency’s failure to make a decision on a certified claim within 21 or fewer days.

Yet even that measure is far worse than what was the case on April 10, when it reached its lowest point since the state agency began posting its dashboard on Feb. 13.

On April 10, only 111,333 claims were taking more than 21 days to be paid or rejected by the EDD. The most recent 21-day backlog number posted for June 12 was a whopping 99.9% higher than the April 10 number — nearly double.

For the category of claims still awaiting certification by the unemployment applicant, the number reported on June 12 was 3% higher than the lowest such number on record, 877,212 on Feb. 13.

For 18 weeks, the EDD has been posting its dashboards designed to shed some light on the progress that’s being made to handle the avalanche of jobless claims in California.

The June 12 number for claims requiring more than 21 days to be paid or rejected was 16.8% higher than the average number for that category for the 18 weeks, while the latest figure for claims stuck in some sort of certification limbo was just a tiny bit higher than the 18-week average. The overall backlog, combining both categories, was 3.3% above the average for the 18 weeks.

Other jobless workers besides Montoya contacted this news organization to relate stories about the EDD’s inability or unwillingness to resolve their unemployment claims.

Deborah Lynn, a former San Jose resident who is now a remote worker living in Arizona has fired off at least eight letters to the EDD, called countless times, and attempted to use the computer portal without success to resolve her claim. Nothing has worked.

“I’m being told nothing about what’s going on with my claim,” Lynn said. “They won’t tell me why I’m not being paid.”

Montoya at one point managed to get through to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to tell them of her plight.

“The governor’s office was terrible,” Montoya said. “They just read responses from a script. I found them rude and unhelpful.”

Montoya said a state lawmaker has intervened on her behalf and received assurances that the EDD would be processing her claim so she could receive her payments, but thasn’t eased her sense of frustration regarding the state agency.

“They just keep telling you different stories about what’s the problem and whether it’s being fixed,” Montoya said. “This is so messed up.”