>Regarding long wait times, L&I has taken many steps since the start of the pandemic to meet demand and improve the UC system. These include:

>Hiring staff

>UC claims are processed by staff in interviewer and examiner roles. Currently, in total, the department has 619 individuals in these roles. About 80 of these individuals are new hires within the past few months, and efforts to hire additional UC staff are ongoing.

Seems like a good "one stone, two birds" approach 😀 press 1 to apply for UC benefits, press 2 to apply for a job here...

Yeah, unfortunately they have been using the pandemic as an excuse for too long. Pennsylvania's unemployment is supposed to be at an all time low, yet they're still taking 8+ weeks to process claims, meanwhile people are going into financial ruins.

I gave up on UC in March 2021. That's why I'm on the edge of homelessness. I can't afford my taxes+fines.

I'm sorry that you're going through that. We had to have a local ministry pay our rent and help with food, otherwise we would be homeless and hungry. I hope things improve for you soon.

Nope. I have 0 days of work scheduled in January & 1 day in February. This is the end.

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After spending billions to revamp the systems

Call your elected officials: state rep, state senator, congressperson - this is the kind of thing they can really help with.

Stop trying to scam desperate folks with your shit.

pppffftttt... they've been totally useless on the UC issue for how many years now?

This is one area of govt where Gov Wolf has totally failed the PA people. I hope Shapiro overhauls the entire department.

On the issue, yes. Individually, they can get your case unstuck with the UI system. Our state senator did this for us twice during the recession. Constituent service.

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Why are they so short staffed? Budget cuts? No one wants to work there? It is inexcusable that this agency functions so horribly. Anytime you rank behind Southern states in anything, you should be embarrassed.

How do you spend millions to modernize an inefficient system only to have it be vulnerable to fraud, inaccessible to users, more inefficient in processing requests and still require the hiring of hundreds?

Shit, as an employer it's bad.

The state mails you a letter on a date. You're lucky if you get that letter 4 days after the date written on the letter. You then have seven (7) days to mail it back to them. Well fuck, you lost me 4 days. I need 1-2 days to answer. Then I need 2-3 days to mail it back...

That's absolute bullshit.

I did. They didn't. I got a 1-time payment of $200 after going to my state rep. Total waste.

Lol so you think a link to a trusted source of side work is a scam.

The cruelty is the point.

It should be easy to get UC, but there’s this asinine prejudice against the people who use this system.

Rather than the old “better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent suffer,” our government seems to take the approach “better that 10 families starve than 1 person scam the system.”

Scammer can delete her reply but don't do the work-from-home crap. It's the Amway of envelope stuffing where you address the envelopes but they don't pay you for the stamps.

GOP runs the state and they hate it so of course it is poorly run. Kick the damn right wingers out so the state can run better. They do nothing to improve the state, education is getting worse,

As tax payers, we're all potential users of the system at some point in time.

The fact it's been so "cluster fucked" should be an outrage especially at a time when so many need UC, and based on predictions on the economy, so many more will soon.

Drives me nuts that people are so caught up in how "this political party is doing this and that political party is doing that" when citizens can't get simple services today that worked fine less than 3 years ago. And cost the taxpayers millions for what is essentially less.

THATS where the outrage should be focused. THATS what needs to be fixed now.

thats the point of it, they dont care

Its how the republicans designed it, make it unbearable to work there and make it difficult to get. No one but them deserves handouts

What did the GOP do to hamper unemployment?

I have an overpayment balance that I've been paying back over the course of the last year or so. Each month I get a letter telling me how I can pay online and each month I look and that part of the site is still offline. So I still have to mail them checks.

Back in 2016 they allowed funding that was allocated to bolster the system to lapse and not be used. Additionally they blocked house Bill 549 which would streamline the UE process to make it faster.

I was on UC in PA for like 3 months in 2019, Oct - Dec, and it was pretty much perfect. Working as intended it seemed. I guess the pandemic broke it.

Applied for UC in May 22. The check cleared last week. This was an uncomplicated claim where both me and my employer agreed that I was underperforming. Why did it take 6 months to "investigate" that? Most of these outstanding claims could be cleared with two clicks on a spreadsheet.

I'm fortunate in that I have savings and was able to get a job shortly after losing my last one but this kind of mismanagement really hurts people in PA.

Call your local Rep they can resolve it in a matter of days

I did.
They didn't.

Maybe try MidPenn legal services? https://www.midpenn.org/what-we-do/coronavirus-response.html

The first question to ask is who got the millions. The next question is to whom they are connected.