Pennsylvania Needs to Resolve the Unemployment Benefit Crisis

From the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (http://www.philaup.org/):

Over 315,000 Pennsylvanians are currently awaiting determinations of their applications for unemployment benefits, many for months. Thousands more have had their benefits stopped illegally without notice or due process.

The US Department of Labor Acceptable Level of Performance says that 80% of UC determinations must be made within 21 days.

PA in the 1^st quarter of 2021 has met that standard for only 6.26% of claimants.  It met that standard in the 4^th quarter for 2020 for only 6.11% of claimants.

States such as Vermont, California and Oregon provided benefits without waiting for determinations when they could not determine eligibility in a timely manner.

• When confronted with their incapacity to provide timely determinations of eligibility, Vermont automatically paid unemployment benefits without determinations from March 2020 until April 2021. “We placed people over process…” said VT Dept. of Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington.
• When confronted with their incapacity to provide timely determinations of eligibility the Secretary of the California Employment Development Department on March 20, 2020 directed that EDD temporarily pay all claims without determining eligibility.  This directive remained in effect, at least until December 2020, according to a January 2021 report of the CA State Auditor Elaine Howle.
• Oregon set up the Benefits While You Wait program to pay over 17,000 claimants without a prior determination in 2020.

Pennsylvania has no plan to reduce the giant backlog of cases awaiting determinations.

No drastic penalties have come from the US Dept. of Labor for these states that make it worthwhile to continue to starve hundreds of thousands of PA citizens.

To resolve the current UC crisis DLI should Pay Benefits to all claimants waiting over 21 days for a determination, particularly considering problems arising from the Benefit Modernization program currently being implemented in the state, causing further delays.

Our families need these benefits paid now, not months from now!