Three days of legislative hearings on the crisis at the Oregon Employment Department culminated Thursday with emotional testimony from several people who described months of frustration waiting for their jobless benefits. (1/7)
“I’ve spent hours upon hours on hold. But my situation, just like so many others, is not being resolved,” said Belindy Bonser, a Jackson County resident, who said she had been waiting for benefits since May and had her car repossessed. (2/7)
“Something has to happen. Someone has to act,” said Bonser, her voice breaking with emotion. “Because this is unacceptable. You guys were elected to represent us and we need you more than any time I’ve ever seen constituents needing their legislators.” (3/7)
Oregon has paid more than $4 billion in unemployment benefits since the pandemic shutdown began in March, but hundreds of thousands of payments were delayed for weeks or months as the department struggled to cope with an unprecedented flood of claims. (4/7)
The surge – Oregon’s unemployment spiked to an all-time high of 14.9% in April – overwhelmed the department’s staff and jammed its phone lines, the main way the department communicates with claimants. (5/7)
“Tens of thousands” of people are still waiting for benefits, according to the department, which says the complexity of the benefits program make it impossible to know just how many haven’t been paid. (6/7)
Underlying the department’s problems is an obsolete computer system that dates to the 1990s. Beset by a decade of dysfunction, the department didn’t update its technology despite receiving $86 million in federal money to fund an upgrade.
Read more: trib.al/jWI5FTA (7/7)
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