Frustrated people seeking unemployment benefits were encountering jammed phone lines and crashed websites at state unemployment offices nationwide Wednesday, as lawmakers in Washington expressed increasing concern that beefed-up jobless payments from a $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package might not reach out-of-work Americans for more than a month.
With the Department of Labor expected to announce Thursday that a record 3.5 million people filed jobless claims last week on top of nearly 3.3 million the previous week, several Democratic senators asked the Labor Department on Wednesday if it’s doing everything possible to speed up the delivery of benefits nationwide.
“Financially stressed Americans should not have to spend hours on the phone waiting for someone to process their application or answer their questions,” the lawmakers wrote, urging Secretary Eugene Scalia “to make sure that every unemployment office in the nation has the necessary staffing and technology to address the unprecedented number of requests for benefits that are coming in each and every day.”
The letter from Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont asked Mr. Scalia to outline his plans by Friday to ensure that “eligible Americans are able to receive their benefits within two weeks of applying.”
Republicans also expressed concern.
“With an enemy we don’t see or hear, we must match execution with intention,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California. “We must be ambassadors for our response efforts to ensure their implementation helps Americans as quickly as possible.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said he’s worried that a “broken unemployment compensation system” in various states isn’t handling the sudden surge in demand for benefits.
“We are being told it could take over a month to start to get unemployment checks — administered by the states — flowing for the millions who have lost jobs through no fault of their own,” Mr. Graham tweeted. “It takes too long to get a check.”
Under the economic rescue package signed by President Trump on Friday, laid-off and furloughed workers will receive an extra $600 a week, for up to four months, and qualify for an extra 13 weeks of benefits. It also offers jobless benefits to previously ineligible groups, such as the self-employed.
When Congress approved the package, lawmakers in both parties said they decided to add the $600 weekly benefit because state unemployment offices were often antiquated and couldn’t be easily coordinated to adjust for varying benefit levels in different states.
But with so many businesses shuttered nationwide, the demand for benefits has quickly overwhelmed some state unemployment offices. In New York, the state unemployment hotline fielded 6 million phone calls over a four-day period; it usually gets just 50,000 calls in a week.
Its website got 2.4 million hits in the same period, up from about 350,000 per week. The state Labor Department said it is hiring hundreds more staffers to answer phones.
Lindsey Boylan, a Democratic candidate for the 10th House district in New York, tweeted, “It’s April 1st. No one has received stimulus funding. Unemployment benefits might not come for another 6 weeks. Many New Yorkers haven’t worked in weeks, but somehow, rent is still due. It makes no sense.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said his state is hiring emergency staff to handle the huge influx of unemployment inquiries. The state unemployment agency’s 800 number received more than 1.5 million calls in one day last week, compared to less than 20,000 in an average week.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security told self-employed people who qualify for new benefits not to apply for now.
“IDES will provide information about how to apply for this benefit as soon as it is finalized,” the agency said.
In Pennsylvania, 830,000 residents have lost their paychecks in the past two weeks. As of Friday, the number of new unemployment claims had surpassed the total for all of 2019, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The focus on getting relief from the $2.2 trillion aid package is one reason that Trump administration officials downplayed talk on Wednesday of preparing a fourth rescue bill. Two senior administration officials said the White House is not working on another bill, despite Mr. Trump’s call on Tuesday for a fourth measure involving $2 trillion for rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure.
Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said $350 billion in grants and Small Business Administration job-retention loans will be available beginning on Friday. The loans can be used for payroll, rent and utilities.
“This program is going to be up and running on Friday,” Mr. Mnuchin said on CNBC. “You can take out a loan for up to eight weeks of payroll, as well as overhead. As long as you hire the people back, the loan is forgiven. It’s a great way to hire people back and make sure you’re getting paid. If you have people at work, this will cover about 50% of the payroll of the private enterprises.”
Stocks opened the second quarter of the year sharply down on Wednesday, following the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst first quarter on record from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and plummeting oil prices.
The Dow dropped 973 points, or more than 4.4%, to close at 20,943. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both were down 4.4%.
For the first quarter, the Dow lost about 23%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing 20% and 14%, respectively. The losses all came after mid-February, when the indexes were at record highs.
Mr. Trump and his top medical advisers warned Tuesday that the U.S. is likely facing anywhere from 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the virus.
The payroll company ADP reported on Wednesday that private-sector employers shed 27,000 jobs in March, but that figure doesn’t show the true picture of job losses for the month since the company’s cutoff date for compiling the statistics was March 12.
Manufacturing contracted in the U.S. and around the world last month, dragged down by economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.
The Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported Wednesday that its U.S. manufacturing index fell to 49.1 in March after registering 50.1 in February. Any reading below 50 signals a contraction. The index had signaled growth in January and February.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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