Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay today called for the state Department of Labor (DOL) to take immediate steps to improve responsiveness and performance in delivering unemployment benefits to New Yorkers seeking assistance. In a letter to Gov. Cuomo, Leader Barclay conveyed many of the concerns being expressed by constituents and proposed measures designed to create greater accountability in the agency.

“Every day, my office is inundated with calls from people in complete desperation. Some are literally in tears, begging for help. The frustration with the state Department of Labor is tangible and it is not subsiding. People have waited and waited, and now they are out of patience and out of options,” Leader Barclay said. “All of us understand that the initial volume of claims was unprecedented and overwhelmed the system. The Department has tried to make changes, but that’s of no consolation to people who were forced out of work and haven’t seen a paycheck in more than a month. It’s been eight weeks since the governor started closing businesses. Whatever steps the state has taken haven’t been fast enough or effective enough.”

With 1.4 million New Yorkers out of work resulting largely from statewide COVID-19 business closures and lockdowns, DOL has been flooded with unemployment insurance claims. According to state officials, approximately 300,000 claims are still pending. It will be several more weeks before many unemployed workers receive their checks. Many individuals have already waited more than a month, with little or no guidance from the state, and no idea as to the status of their cases.

Leader Barclay urged the governor to implement new performance measures at DOL and provide updated data on unemployment insurance cases. The measures would require DOL to:

• provide daily statistics on the number of outstanding claims and average length of time those claims have been with DOL;
• update daily the number of new claims filed each day;
• give every applicant a time estimate on how long their claim will take to be processed;
• set a deadline to close all outstanding cases;
• provide estimates on future unemployment claims based on possible extension of Gov. Cuomo’s “New York on Pause” restrictions; and
• submit a list of mitigation measures to be implemented that will lessen wait times, improve responsiveness and deliver unemployment benefits.

A copy of the letter is available here.