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We need a national system

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“It was designed with all these different things, basically to fail, I think,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in late April about his state’s unemployment insurance application system.

He’s right. The system was specifically designed by DeSantis’ predecessor to make it more difficult to obtain unemployment benefits, according to an early April article in Politico.

The director of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency told the New York Times his state’s system is stacked against applicants. It was, he said, “built to assume that you’re guilty and make you prove that you’re innocent.”

Elsewhere, including in Illinois, years of neglect and disinvestment produced rickety, aging systems that were and are still nowhere near capable of handling 41 million unemployment benefit applications filed in the nation over just 2½ months.

For many, if not most of those Americans, this is the first time they’ve ever had to file for unemployment benefits. I did so once, back in the 1980s. It was a simple process. But the nation was in an economic expansion when I suddenly found myself out of a job. I don’t think I even had to wait in line at the local office.

That’s not the case now. The pandemic has closed pretty much all unemployment insurance office doors to the public. Police have been called to some offices.

Phone lines have been jammed as untold thousands of desperate human beings try as one to access the benefits that they paid into from their own paychecks. We’ve all read about or even experienced firsthand the hours-long waits to talk to a “real” person.

Ohio’s unemployment agency had just 40 people working the phones when the economy crashed, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The state has averaged 350,000 calls per day, a Cincinnati TV station reported. It’s like a mouse trying to drink from Niagara Falls.

The Illinois Department of Employment Security was a tiny bit better off. It had 173 employees answering and processing calls at the beginning of the economic crash, according to a report by CBS2 Chicago. IDES has since added 41 employees to take calls and contracted with Deloitte to run a call center with 242 people.

Click here to read the rest before commenting, please. Thanks.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:18 am

Comments

Isn’t this the goal of the system? To make it as difficult as possible for people to get unemployment insurance? If you fundamentally wanted to convert unemployment into employment and provide unemployment insurance for people, you’d have a system that makes sure people can access a mental health counselor (losing a job is traumatic). You’d focus on gainful employment, not maximizing worksheets or interviews for meaningless jobs. You’d have single-payer health care.

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:25 am
1.) I agree wholeheartedly that it would be ideal for a federal employment benefit system to exist.

2.) I am under the impression our current structure exists in part because of constitutional limits on the federal government’s authority.

3.) Would placing the system in the hands of the feds actually cause a better response? They can’t even quickly deploy uniform payments of $1,200 and for some reason the President insisted on sending out a fancy letter with his signature on it boasting of the federal stimulus which was unnecessary and wasted resources.

4.) Would consolidating the process through the feds create a worse outcome for some people in some states in a normal unemployment situation? As you pointed out, some states just want their people to starve if they can’t get a job, or to take any job they can get and it’s not as if these policies are consistently designed by folks with informed opinions of economics or even with a belief in the mission.

Comment by Candy Dogood Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:30 am
I have some expertise here - COBOL being originally designed in 1959 does not mean it is bad. The language has been updated over years, the latest version was in 2014. COBOL is still used in business, finance, government systems because it is reliable - your bank likely uses COBOL. It’s just not seen as ‘cool’ by most tech people.

Comment by ChicagoVinny Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:33 am
I’m not sure a national solution is appropriate because any program administered at the federal level is a nightmare, but State’s really need to be held accountable, like in Oregon where the Governor asked for the Unemployment Insurance administrator’s resignation.

Comment by Just Me 2 Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:33 am
I’m hitting the Crain’s paywall, but my argument would be for universal basic income, instead.

(And it’s a long, detailed argument, so perhaps we can meet in a park somewhere and socially distance while we debate it? )

Comment by Lynn S. Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:45 am
== 2.) I am under the impression our current structure exists in part because of constitutional limits on the federal government’s authority. ==

This is why Title III of the Social Security Act is written as grants to the States, yeah: SCOTUS had already ruled against several pieces of the New Deal and the block grants were aimed at avoiding similar rulings about this.

To the post: in many States, the plan remains to ensure a government safety net fails due to defunding/red tape, then point to the program as proof that “government doesn’t work,” then lather/rinse/repeat.

Comment by thunderspirit Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 9:56 am
I did not read the column as it is behind a paywall but here are some thoughts on the Unemployment Insurance systems.

One thing that does not get mentioned enough is that back in the day the unemployment application was done in person on a hard copy, then it was hard copy or filing online, and now I think at least in Illinois it is mostly filing online.

The problem with making filing for UI mostly online is many people are computer illiterate and many people do not own a computer. Also many people do not have the internet access either because they cannot afford it or they do not have broadband access/infrastructure where they live.

This is one area where local public libraries help fill a void as many people use the computers at their library for many personal and business matters that require a computer and the internet.

So for all the people that think the public libraries are just for books, the libraries are much more and essentially function as community centers.

https://capitolfax.com/2018/07/23/because-libraries/

Comment by Big Jer Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 10:01 am
I agree there needs to be a national system, but there is no chance of national system under the current political climate. I doubt there will be any real push to do it for a long time. The current economic mess (caused by the pandemic mess) will make any expansive changes extremely difficult.

Comment by Bruce (no not him) Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 10:11 am
I did read the column and thought it made some good points.
Thinking Illinois could and should figure out a way to do things better now that the problems in the system are getting more attention. Not sure the federal government could or would do a better job.
The comment on using library facilities and resources was interesting. Why not increase their mission?

Comment by Back to the Future Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 10:19 am
@ Big Her,

I took a voluntary layoff from my job in early April.

I can speak from my experience, which, early on, wasn’t positive.

A big part of the problem — and I hope it’s the first thing that gets fixed — is that in Illinois (can’t speak about any other state), you cannot apply or certify with your smartphone.

Might have been a decent decision in 2012, but it’s 2020. About 92% of the population have smartphones, and the poorer you are, or the younger you are, the higher the likelihood that a smartphone is the primary, or even only, way you access the internet.

When I tried to go to IDES website in early April to try to figure out why my application kept messing up (there’s a better descriptor, but Rich runs a family-friendly blog), there was absolutely nothing on the very front page telling you that you couldn’t use your smartphone, you had to go to a computer wired to the wall. How many of the phone calls could have been avoided if people had been told about this on the front page, rather than having to go 3 or 4 pages into the site?

IDES website is absolutely horrible (multiple banned punctuations). I couldn’t find a number to call on it; had to hit Google instead.

And calling, in early April? I think I tried at least 8 times over 2 days. My call would connect, only to drop after the recorded message finished (roughly 4 minutes). At no point in any of these calls did I speak to an actual person.

Payment default is the card. They would save themselves a lot of grief if they made the payment choice question a two-parter, to make absolutely certain that’s what people wanted, not direct deposit. (But I also suspect Key Bank would lose money if the payment preference question was better designed, so I don’t expect that to be improved or fixed.)

I will say, that after I got through all the b.s., I have been able to certify online and get my direct deposit.

Everyone at IDES has my permission to use this post at meetings when they discuss what needs to be fixed.

Comment by Lynn S. Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 10:38 am
Wholeheartedly disagree with a federal system of unemployment. Such a system would be held to the whims of whichever party is in power. Just imagine the chaos of a federal unemployment system in the midst of the current crisis and administered by the current administration.

The republican party has demonstrated its callous indifference, bordering on hostility, to those who aren’t in their economic caste.

Comment by Huh? Monday, Jun 1, 20 @ 11:33 am