Overloaded, underfunded unemployment systems flummox jobless in Kansas and Missouri
With a group of her coworkers, Whitney Yadrich woke up early Monday morning.
About 5:30 a.m. they started checking in to make sure all were awake and ready for 6 a.m. That’s when the Kansas unemployment website was set to reopen after being shut down — once again — for maintenance.
The group, who created a Slack channel called “Merlot furlough,” hoped an early start on Monday would help with filing their weekly unemployment claims, beating out the rush of other Kansas workers that has made it difficult to access the website or phone operators.
Even so, it took Yadrich, who is also on the Merriam City Council, 45 minutes to fill out her weekly claim, thanks to the sluggish website timing out. A digital marketing specialist, Yadrich used her own coding skills to adopt workarounds in her browser when buttons on her screen were not displaying.
“I know those guys are working so hard at the Department of Labor, but to me that was absolutely ridiculous,” Yadrich said, noting countless others wouldn’t possess the technical skills needed to complete the task.
For Kari Leeka, a Half Priced Books employee living in Overland Park who has been on furlough since March 23, technical skills wouldn’t even help. She said after filing her initial claim for unemployment, she’s been unable to get weekly claims because the Kansas Department of Labor website won’t accept her password; when she tries to reset it, it won’t accept her birthdate.
She’s called more than 300 times for help but can’t get anyone on the phone.
“Technically it’s our money and I feel like it’s being held hostage,” said Leeka, 38. “I think many of us are at our breaking point just filing a claim. I don’t mind doing this every week, I just feel like I’m being sabotaged trying to do it.”
Cracks are showing in unemployment programs in all 50 states under the pressure of the coronavirus pandemic and the historic volume of unemployment claims that these systems were not designed or equipped to handle.
The numbers of new claims continued to surge in Missouri last week. State data released Thursday showed 101,722 people filed new jobless claims for the week ending April 11. That was up from the 91,049 who filed the previous week.
In Kansas, 30,786 people filed new claims last week, down from 50,345 the week before.
Collectively, about half a million people in the states have filed new claims in the last four weeks.
Kansas, in particular, where the Department of Labor website for filing claims has been buggy or offline for extended periods and getting someone on the phone is rare, highlights how years of state government austerity measures have left cash-strapped agencies like those that administer unemployment bereft of investments needed to handle emergencies.
Kansas added roughly 150 employees to its Department of Labor to decrease wait times throughout March and April, Gov. Laura Kelly said during a daily briefing Wednesday. Originally, only 20 employees were answering phones.
The Department of Labor’s call center received 751,940 calls Tuesday — roughly 5,000 per employee, Kelly said.
On Thursday, the state said it hoped to further ease the stress on staff — and residents — by asking people to file for benefits on certain days based on their last names. Last names starting with A through M are asked to file Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Individuals with N-Z last names are asked to file Monday, Wednesday or Friday. Anyone who misses their day can file Saturday instead.
“The good news is our system is working,” Kansas Department of Labor Secretary Delia Garcia said. “The not so good news is that it could be working better.”
More call-takers won’t help with the outdated computer system that’s on a mainframe that dates back to the 1970s.
The labor department went to Mississippi and Idaho to observe systems that benefited from modernization and was working toward a study to pursue upgrades of its own. Then the pandemic happened, bringing with it a sudden glut of layoffs and furloughs that’s a contrast to other economic downturns where unemployment comes on more gradually.
“The problem is we didn’t quite get there,” deputy labor secretary Brett Flachsbarth said.
Lawmakers hearing horror stories from constituents have criticized the Kelly administration over the unemployment lapses.
“The problem with processing unemployment claims is nothing more than an inability to properly manage the agency,” Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle said in a statement this week.
But other lawmakers say unemployment’s shortcomings are the inevitable result of years of cutting in government programs.
“When something in government breaks then everyone wonders why,” said Sen. Stephanie Clayton, D-Overland Park. “This is what small government looks like. It’s government that doesn’t work. It’s government that can’t handle an emergency. You have to learn your lesson from these austerity measures.”
The Missouri Department of Labor has offered a sunnier view of its unemployment program. Delores Rose, spokeswoman for the department, said that 90% of claims are processed through its online portal without assistance.
But Andrew Gondzur, a safety consultant in St. Louis whose business has slowed as stay-at-home orders spread across Missouri, said he’s running into similar technological bugs on the Missouri site.
As a self-employed worker, he’s not eligible for state unemployment benefits but he can get temporary assistance from the CARES Act that Congress passed that makes benefits available for gig workers and independent contractors.
Gondzur, 53, started the application by entering his name, address and Social Security number. But the state website continued telling him those entries were not valid — before locking his account for making too many attempts. A notice on the screen told him to call a local office. But it only listed a state fax number.
He eventually found a toll-free number, but that didn’t work either. When he called that, an automated message told him to call back to a local number. Finally, he found a local number, but it continually informs him that all representatives are busy and that even the hold lines are all full.
“It hangs up on me because there’s too many people in the queue,” he said. “I’m just trying every once in a while. And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I haven’t even been able to apply.”
More than tech problems
Missouri, along with many other states, has other problems beyond its technology. Each state has an unemployment trust fund, which employers pay into through a tax, that pays unemployment benefits.
Rose said Missouri’s trust fund balance is the highest it’s been in the state’s history. But will it have enough to cover the effect of spiking unemployment claims from the coronavirus pandemic?
“We do not provide projections regarding future unknown events,” Rose said.
Missouri’s unemployment trust fund ranks among the bottom 20 states for its solvency, according to a 2020 report by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Missouri’s unemployment trust fund went insolvent in 2009 before recovering in the years that followed.
“If insolvency becomes an issue, then the DES (Division of Employment Security) will take appropriate action provided by law,” Rose said.
Kansas, by comparison, is well above the recommended minimum solvency level.
Those ratings use the last three recessions to estimate the peak level of unemployment benefits needed in each state. But states are now likely to exceed the fallout of those previous recessions, said Annelies Goger, the David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.
Aside from the mass of funding needed for out-of-work individuals, states are now laboring to implement new federal programs while grappling with long underfunded and archaic systems.
“Unfortunately, it’s never easy for state administrators to implement changes to their systems quickly,” Goger said. “A lot of them were built in the ’80s and they haven’t been upgraded because we’ve starved them so much.”
She said states began trimming unemployment safety net programs in the Reagan era, leaving them ill-prepared for the current crisis.
“It’s a herculean task,” she said. “And I’m concerned that because of delays you’re not going to get benefits in the hands of people quickly.”
She said a Denmark-style relief program would have helped reduce the unprecedented strain on state unemployment insurance systems.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, recently proposed such a plan that would have the federal government cover 80% of each worker’s payroll costs up to the median wage to help prevent further layoffs during the pandemic.
Goger said an ideal program would allow employers to furlough workers if necessary, cutting hours and pay. But with government funding funneled directly to employers, workers wouldn’t lose their employer-sponsored health insurance. It would also save the state unemployment offices from being overwhelmed with calls and online applications.
Plus, by shedding workers now, employers will have a slower time rehiring and ramping up once the crisis has subsided.
“You get this domino effect,” Goger said. “And now it’s just going to hit all the way though — servers who can’t pay their landlords and landlords who can’t pay their mortgages. It’s just really costly and is going to make it harder to bounce back. “
States have for decades cut funding from their unemployment programs. Those systems now are unable to keep up with the millions of newly unemployed workers looking for relief.
It’s unclear when workers will see their first unemployment benefit payments — not to mention the $600 per week approved by Congress and President Donald Trump.
“The problem is that we have spent 30 years scaling back these systems,” Goger said.
Many workers, particularly the self-employed and contract workers, will ultimately receive richer benefits than in previous recessions. But in the meantime, they’ll likely face big complications and delays before they receive any cash.
“It’s just going to be a rocky rollout,” Goger said. “And ideally you wouldn’t be implementing new programs on the fly in the middle of a crisis. But that’s where we’re at.”
Where to go for help
Erinn Spielberger, a Prairie Village accountant on furlough from a restaurant group, has been trying to get her unemployment benefits from Kansas.
The 43-year-old accidentally answered on her unemployment claim that she’s getting workers compensation, triggering a Kansas labor department requirement that she get a healthcare provider’s certification. Now, she can’t the department to return calls or emails to help rectify the error.
“I am freaking out because I am going to start to need the money soon,” she said.
Clayton, the Overland Park Democrat, put out an offer on social media last week to her constituents, pledging to help people who are having a difficult time navigating the unemployment system.
She suggested other Kansans do that with their state elected representatives.
“Everyone has a senator and representative,” Clayton said. “If you don’t like one of them, you might like the other.”
Doug Cowan, president and CEO of the Community Services League, said the nonprofit group always helps people navigate systems like unemployment programs.
But now it must help a surge of individuals who have never had to file for unemployment, while grappling with overwhelmed and changing systems.
“This is a thing that we as a frontline agency are having to navigate ourselves in trying to understand it and help other people get through it,” he said.
While it’s unclear when the economy may fully reopen, Cowan said it’s likely that some jobs in retail and service sectors aren’t coming back. So some individuals will need to consider retraining opportunities.
But in the meantime, everyone is rightfully focused on resiliency and survival. He urged discouraged individuals to continue to file for unemployment assistance and to ask support agencies like his for assistance if they encounter trouble.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out. Sometimes there’s been a historical stigma or embarrassment around unemployment,” Cowan said. “But when you think about your family and maintaining housing and other things, it’s important to reach out.”
The Mid-Continent Public Library, with computers available to the public at its 31 branches, is accustomed to helping vulnerable individuals learn how to use technology to navigate systems like unemployment.
But there’s only so much staffers can do when the websites themselves fail.
“We can’t make these systems work any better. We can’t get the government to hire more people,” said Morgan Perry, who works in a library program that supports entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Currently, the library is offering one-on-one virtual sessions to help individuals apply for unemployment. Oftentimes, the most important thing staffers can do is validate that a person has completed the appropriate steps, even if the site crashes or they never receive confirmation that their claim was submitted — common occurrences nowadays.
“We can talk to people and give them a face, virtually, saying, ‘I see what you’re seeing. Yes, this is real,’” Perry said. “Because a lot of people when they don’t get an answer back immediately...they freak out.”
While the systems may not be fixed immediately, she said states could do a better job of communicating with individuals.
“A lot of this could be helped by a video on their website. Almost everyone in these positions has a smartphone,” she said. “You’d be amazed what you can do with a smartphone. Giving someone a face to connect with at a big, scary organization can go a long way in calming people down.”
And Clayton suggested avoiding placing phone calls to the labor department unless you don’t have Internet access, English isn’t your first language or you’re in the military.
“The phones are really their only option for getting through,” she said.
The Star’s Nicole Asbury contributed reporting for this story.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 10:44 AM.
