Akin Walker called the New York State Department of Labor 259 times on Tuesday, hoping to file for unemployment benefits. In one instance, he reached a representative. But the government worker couldn’t hear Walker and soon hung up the phone.
The next day, Walker, who had worked as a catering assistant before being furloughed on March 18th, just as the COVID-19 outbreak was picking up steam, used two different phones to dial the agency more than 1,000 times. Eventually, he completed his unemployment claim. Aggressive persistence, it seems, helped Walker get his benefits.
More than 369,000 people successfully filed for unemployment in New York State in the week ending March 28th, according to data published Thursday by the state Department of Labor. That figure represents a dramatic increase of 2,674% compared to last year.
The sudden influx of unemployment claims as a result of COVID-19-related layoffs and furloughs has overwhelmed existing processes for filing claims, and the state DOL is struggling to keep up as busy phone signals and crashes to the agency's website have become the norm. Multiple New Yorkers told Gothamist they still haven’t successfully completed an unemployment claim days and weeks after losing their job. As time drags by, panic on financial insecurity mounts.
“It feels like there's no end in sight,” Lyndsay Reyes, a Staten Island resident who was furloughed from content production company CreativeDrive on March 23rd, told Gothamist. She called the state DOL 200 times on Wednesday alone. “My income was already very low because it is entry-level, and I cannot afford to be losing any paychecks at this point. I pay my student loans. I give my parents money to help support them.”
The state DOL’s phone system registered 8.2 million calls between March 23rd and March 28th, far exceeding the agency’s capacity to answer. Despondent New Yorkers recounted calling the state DOL repeatedly in hopes of reaching an automated menu that asks for a social security number.
As days without success continue, those who are unemployed call more and more. Frequently, callers fail to even reach the mechanical prompts. When they’re lucky enough to get through the pre-recorded selections, many are subsequently told the lines are busy. Those who get to speak to a representative wait a variable period of time--often hours--before reaching an employee. Ironically, upon reaching a government worker, the filing process takes just minutes to complete.
Filing online poses its own challenges. Last week, website traffic rose nearly 900 percent compared to a typical week, according to a state DOL spokesperson. Those attempting to file have reported recurrent problems. The website crashes. Their claims time out. They fill out a variety of information and then are told to finish by phone.
“It’s essentially like trying to win the lottery,” Mike Desposito, who started Facebook group “HELP US - NYS Unemployment Issues,” told Gothamist of seeking to finish the filing process. “I was calling them for two weeks. And then I would see someone who just yesterday had called in for the first time, and they got through with three calls, yet I had tried maybe [500], 600 times and still not gotten through.”
In less than a week, more than 2,220 people have joined Desposito’s Facebook group. Recently unemployed bartenders, restaurant servers and retail workers commiserate over their frustrations. They question why they need to call and why the state hasn’t established a callback system, instead of requiring people repeatedly call. Group members express fears about affording food, concerns about keeping up with rent, and trepidation about when they might actually file their claims. Success stories evoke both astonishment and congratulations.
Realizing the demand to handle the uptick in unemployment, the state has increased the number of operators to 700, compared to 97 before the outbreak, a state DOL spokesperson told Gothamist. The agency has also extended hours of operation, attempted to limit website traffic by requiring claimants to file only on certain days corresponding with their last names, and added over 20 web servers. Hundreds more individuals are being brought on to assist the unemployment hotline.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has apologized for the unemployment backlog. On Tuesday, he said tech companies are working to bolster the state DOL’s capacities.
“Even if people are delayed in filing because of website issues or phone traffic issues, we are guaranteeing they’re going to get every cent of benefit they’re owned,” a spokesperson from Cuomo’s office told Gothamist. “We’re putting systems in place that hopefully reduce the overload on the system but also provide flexibility on the back end so applications will be processed in a timely manner.”
These guarantees haven’t assuaged fears among those scrambling for assistance. Fifty-eight percent of New York City residents lack three months of emergency expenses, according to a 2016 analysis from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development. State DOL claims processing takes an estimated two-to-three weeks. Though the state DOL said it doesn’t expect first payments to be backlogged, those who haven’t successfully filed yet worry about their finances, as that two-to-three week window gets pushed further and further away.
And even those who have some financial reserves are still worried.
“While I wasn't quite living paycheck to paycheck, a few weeks without work has left me in a precarious position,” said Jordan Smith, who, until recently, bartended at Odo, a Japanese restaurant in the Flatiron District. “It seems like all we're going to get on the subject is lip service about how they've added workers to the call centers. Knowing there are 700 more people not answering my phone calls isn't going to put food on my table.”
