Pa.’s unemployment system can’t keep up with volume of claims

Some jobless left in limbo as state processes a million claims

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Tim Lambert / WITF

A sign inside the door of the Cocoa Diner in Hummelstown, Pa. (Tim Lambert / WITF)

Tim Lambert / WITF

A sign inside the door of the Cocoa Diner in Hummelstown, Pa. (Tim Lambert / WITF)

I recently interviewed Jim Redcay, a Lancaster County master woodworker who’s among the many Pennsylvanians struggling to secure unemployment benefits. Like most other states, the commonwealth hasn’t been able to process many of the million-plus claims filed since social distancing and business closures began in earnest in mid-March.

You can listen to my story about Redcay here if you missed it on WITF or our partner public media stations across the state.

Originally, Redcay and others who initiated the claims process during the week of March 15-21 had until April 3 to complete it. That involves the applicant waiting for a personal ID number to be mailed by the state. When I spoke to Redcay on the afternoon of the 3rd, he was a bit frustrated that he’d yet to receive his PIN. But he also was relieved because the state had extended his deadline until April 10. And he’d scheduled a phone call for the 10th with L&I to complete his application.

Fast forward to April 10: Redcay still didn’t have his PIN. And when he answered L&I’s call that morning, an automated teleprompt system was on the other end, not a human being. Redcay says he “listened to muzak for three hours, and then the line went dead.” No one has responded to an email he sent more than two weeks ago, either. Now past the deadline to finish filing his claim, Redcay has no idea what to do.

L&I’s communications team told me the department “will continue to adjust the timeframe for receiving PINs,” but hasn’t responded to my questions about what people should do if they are in Redcay’s situation. The state’s website still says applicants who initiated a claim in the week of March 15 have until April 10 to enter the PIN.

I’m continuing to follow this issue, and teaming up with a few WHYY reporters for at least the next few stories. Stay tuned. —Emily Previti

Some related coverage from around Pa.:

• The Morning Call: Filing for unemployment because of the coronavirus shutdown? Prepare for a long wait

• WNEP: State releases new guidelines to help streamline unemployment benefit applications

• Post-Gazette: Depression-era unemployment program confronts a different crisis with a different workforce

• Wilkes-Barre Times Leader: Unemployment claimants to begin getting extra $600 per week

• The Inquirer: Officials ‘wargaming’ a slow, sequenced reopening of a sick and newly jobless America

Best of the rest

Gene J. Puskar / AP Photo

Pastor Bruce Schafer, top right, preaches from a scissor lift during the first of two drive-in Easter services held by Grace Life Church in a parking lot in Monroeville, Pa., Sunday, April 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

• Pennsylvania’s pandemic death toll exceeded 500, according to the latest data released by state health officials on Sunday (the same day the U.S. COVID-19 death toll became the greatest in the world.

• The commonwealth isn’t among the states — at least eight, Vox reports — where religious organizations are exempt from stay-at-home orders. So, churches and synagogues from Philadelphia to Erie have taken to running services online or drive-in style during the pandemic. Easter Sunday was no exception. One Philly church ended up canceling its planned in-person event for worshippers without Internet access and did, in fact, stream services. In York, an unofficial sunrise observation at an overlook in Samuel S. Lewis State Park included a 19-year-old cellist who’d “normally be playing for All Saints Church, [in Upper Leacock Township, Lancaster County], but on this morning his church was the open space on top of a bald hill with the Susquehanna River flowing below,” writes YDR’s Paul Kuehnel.

• Going online isn’t always an easy step for smaller churches, The Inquirer’s Cassie Owens writes: “Archbishop Mary Floyd Palmer, presiding prelate of the Philadelphia Council of Clergy, said that many smaller churches in the area have struggled with converting to digital, and have stopped having services in any form. At her church, the nondenominational West Philadelphia congregation Heavenly Hall, they’re currently having church through conference calls, which welcome roughly 60 callers. They’re working on video options for the future.”

• Erie City Council will broadcast its next meeting via the city’s TV channel — a step up from earlier this month when it closed chambers and broadcast business via City Hall’s internal intercom system for reporters sitting in the hallway outside, The Erie Times-News reports. All levels of government have been increasingly conducting business remotely, often opting to stream public meetings with officials participating remotely or at a safe social distance from one another. Legislation that would spell out proper protocol for Pa. municipal governments is working its way through the statehouse. Each chamber has worked up its own version. The House bill would require municipalities to post minutes or recordings of public meetings to their websites, if they aren’t livestreamed initially. The Senate’s measure, which appears to be the one destined for final passage, doesn’t go into much detail on that point.

• Philadelphia continues to expand restrooms and hand-washing stations for people struggling with homelessness, adding a few just north of city hall, Billy Penn reports.  Other cities have done the same, including York — where WellSpan Health is partnering with emergency management officials to expand access to treatment for people who are unsheltered or living in temporary housing and providing transportation, food, shelter and care to those who test positive for COVID-19, The York Dispatch reports.

• Some state prison inmates are now making personal protective equipment to try to fill the need for PPE at the Department of Corrections and other state facilities across the commonwealth. They’re making masks, gowns, soap and disinfectant in-house because DOC officials “didn’t want to take from the community supply,” Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John Wetzel told NorthCentralPa.com.

Coronavirus must reads: 

• Post-Gazette: Jonas Salk’s son sees hope in COVID-19 efforts, still pushing for polio eradication

• New York Times: Life for the first wave of COVID-19 survivors

• Wall Street Journal: Medical-supply companies seek relief from U.S. tariff on components for products used to fight pandemic

• NPR: Coronavirus halts IVF for thousands of women

Weekend, ICYMI:

• The Atlantic: Dave Grohl’s Pandemic Playlist

• The Washington Post: SNL’s first remote episode in history. (Via YouTube as well)