I Applied For Unemployment and Realized We Are Not Ready For This.

This week I, along with 6.6 million Americans, and about 4 million in the weeks preceding, filed for unemployment. It is the first time in my life I have ever had to do so. While I’ve never made much money, I’ve always been able to work, and provide for myself. It was a singularly disconcerting experience, and forces you to think of your life in oddly demeaning ways, like typical weekly income, how many weeks in a year you’ve worked, and how long until you may be working again.

Now I say I have filed for unemployment benefits, not that I’ve been accepted for it, or even really begun the process of being interviewed by the office of unemployment insurance, having them contact my former employers, determining/disputing how much I should receive on a weekly basis, and then getting back-pay for the weeks (or months) the entire process takes. Thankfully I have some recent experience in helping a loved one navigate the process of receiving unemployment benefits. And while I know recent funding packages and expansion of unemployment has been made in response to the coronavirus quarantine, I can tell from my experience so far that the the office is still not ready or designed to provide the level and urgency of relief millions of us need right now.

Firstly, the website and application process itself does not allow you to easily or accurately put in my information. For millions of service industry workers, small business employees and independent contractors, the application is woefully insufficient in even basic information. That it is when the websites are even operational (many have been crashing with increased traffic) they don’t allow for many of the options that workers eligible under expanded benefits need. For instance, I had to input the number of weeks working at my last job that I made over a certain amount. Having been paid an hourly wage for the past four years, I was digging through bank statements and pay stubs for hours. And then the website wouldn’t even take anything higher than a two-digit number, so I could only report inaccurate information. A similar cap applies to the amounts I could put for weekly income, which again limits how much I can eventually receive.

In addition to all of this, working for a small business (under fifty employees) means that my employers do not need to be registered with unemployment insurance. It also means that business is not required nor incentivized to provide sick leave or family leave. For anybody applying for unemployment, having been laid off or cut hours from an unregistered employer, the initial estimate for benefits is automatically $0 a week. That does not mean that I will not receive any benefits. But that I will have to fight the office of unemployment for every penny. They will have to contact my employers, and I will have to provide documentation for every pay period to prove how much I made. Much of that documentation, by the way, can only be faxed or mailed because our multitude of social safety net bureaus have not been updated since the nineties. Try finding somewhere with a usable fax machine during quarantine.

This brings me to my next point. Not only is the process of unemployment not designed for many of the millions now applying for it, it is not designed to handle this crisis at all. And the recent legislative changes, from what I’ve seen, don’t address those core inefficiencies.

One glaring example is the fact that the process of receiving unemployment benefits still requires you to look for work, and catalog that search, through the office’s website. I won’t even bother to detail the complete travesty that is a state-designed job search engine. But it should be clear that at this moment, while the entire country is quarantined inside, the economy is nosediving and hundreds of thousands are dying, hiring new employees is at the top of nobodies' priorities. Most industries are seeing a complete hiring freeze, and many of those who are in the process of hiring have put off training indefinitely. It is true that a few industries are seeing a high demand for new employees now. Needless to say, they are not desirable in this moment, and can be extremely dangerous. Grocery and appliance stores are hiring mass amounts of stocking staff, as are Amazon warehouses. Not only will that work be insufficient for many finding themselves unemployed or without pay, but we are seeing that they can be extremely dangerous conditions where the virus continues to spread.

This job search requirement also overlooks the many new stressors and duties that so many are facing in this crisis. It is an extremely time-consuming and trying process to keep up with application requirements. For any caretakers of people sick with the virus, or of children who are now quarantined at home all day, this could prove a difficult if not impossible task. As this process also requires taking interviews and even volunteering opportunities, it can also be dangerous for those quarantined with their families. As is always the case with these processes of social services, but with worse consequences in this moment, the most vulnerable populations will fall through the cracks.

Which brings me to the point I’ve learned over an adult life of dealing with social assistance programs, and which millions will soon be learning. These systems themselves are not designed to provide the assistance their meant to, as much as deny people and push them out as much as possible. Every step of the process, from interviews to providing documentation and contacting employers, is slow and can be tripped up by the slightest inconsistency or mistake. All important communication is sent through physical mail, which takes weeks to arrive and when it does, you are left with only a few days to get replies and documentation back through mail or fax. When the process is tripped up, you receive nothing or have to begin again. This is how these agencies are designed, these agents trained, in order to keep as many off of financial assistance as possible. In my experience, it is the same with Section 8 housing assistance, Medicaid and Social Security. Even when it is successful, it is a long process. It is not able to give the immediate help so many people need.

Just last fall, it took my family member over a month and a half from applying for employment before they were actually accepted and received their first check. It took another month of back and forth with the office to receive back-pay for that first month. In that time they also had to apply for medicaid, and apply for jobs weekly. In just a matter of weeks, this office that took longer to send snail mail replies, has received ten million applicants. And they will all be learning how broken this system really is. Whatever changes and extra funding passed by the federal government will not make its way into the system for weeks more. That is how government programs work, slowly and inefficiently. It is not meant to help in a crisis, and in many cases, it is not meant to help at all.

Now here I must say that each state actually has its own process and office for Unemployment Insurance, so experiences will differ. But I am applying in Illinois, a state with more expansive unemployment benefits than many. So if it is insufficient here, it’s a fair guess that it is the same or worse for much of the country.

The truth is no federal or state agency is prepared for this crisis or the strain it is causing. Unemployment Insurance offices are even less prepared, because of how low unemployment rates have been for almost a decade. These offices base their budgets and hiring on previous years, and almost every state has been reducing their resources for unemployment since the recession. We are seeing the consequences of hobbling agencies meant to help Americans facing personal crisis, now that we are all in the same crisis.

Update: Since writing this story 27 states have waived or relaxed their job search requirements for UI benefits (Illinois is not one of them). Most have replaced it with a weekly re-certification requirement. You can check requirements for specific states here.

Originally published at http://writetoknowkohln.wordpress.com on April 3, 2020.