Some Californians still waiting for delayed unemployment checks
More than two days after the state’s top labor official ordered all delayed unemployment benefits payments to be issued immediately, some Californians have yet to see their money posted to their bank accounts.
Some 124,000 Californians were expecting their jobless benefits to begin posting Thursday, nearly three weeks after an upgrade to the state’s unemployment benefits computer system went live over Labor Day weekend.
The software update inadvertently caused tens of thousands of claims to be flagged for further review, effectively halting payments by the state’s Employment Development Department.
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State workers worked overtime to reduce the backlog of claims, but were unable to get a handle of the massive logjam. On Tuesday, Marty Morgenstern, the state’s secretary of labor and workforce development, directed the EDD to forgo checking claimants’ eligibility and issue payments immediately.
“It is unlikely that the claims backlog will be reduced quickly enough to respond to the very real financial hardship now being experienced by too many of our residents relying on timely payment of their UI benefits,” Morgenstern wrote Tuesday.
On Friday, affected Californians were posting updates on a Facebook message group called “Audit and Reorganize California Unemployment Department.”
Some received their delayed payments late Thursday: “I seriously feel like I could cry, I’m so relieved right now!!” one woman wrote.
But at least a dozen others on the thread had not yet been paid: “I cant handle this......I wake up every morning and call to see if there are funds on my card. STILL NOTHING!!!!! Day 39,” wrote another woman.
EDD officials said that since the launch of the software upgrade, a total of 148,000 individuals were flagged for review. As of late Thursday, state officials had cleared 101,000 of those, leaving a backlog of 47,000.
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