PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Last year, as the pandemic ramped up, businesses were forced to shut their doors and lay off employees.
Congress was slow to pass a relief bill, delaying federal guidelines for how the money should be dispensed. And, it was left up to the states to create new programs for self-employed and gig-workers, who were also left without jobs.
Jobless workers were left chipping away at their savings while they waited. It was a perfect storm for the tidal wave of unemployment claims to flood labor departments around the country.
At the height of the pandemic, Pennsylvania was repeatedly breaking records. More than 2 million people filed for unemployment in the Keystone State. At one point, Pennsylvania had the second-highest number of claims in the country.
The state lacked enough employees to answer the flood of phone calls and emails about people’s claims and payments, and frustration boiled over.
State officials tried to quickly train new hires and put state workers on the phones, but it was never enough. Some people still experienced delays and issues getting paid their proper amounts, or at all.
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Legal aid stepped in to try to help those most vulnerable, who waited the longest. State labor officials held weekly meetings to explain numbers and outline the new programs. By mid to end of April, gig workers were able to start signing up for their federal program, known as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA.
Some tried to cash in on unemployment, creating a wave of fraud across the country — which, once again, slowed payments.
Now, since the number of positive COVID-19 cases has relatively quelled compared to the start of the pandemic, some Pennsylvanians have been able to get back to work, even just part-time. However, unemployment numbers remain high. As of April 2021, 719,000 Americans have applied for unemployment benefits.
Some have filed for extensions, others are still waiting to be paid.
But out of the storm, labor officials say they have learned from this crisis. They plan to soon upgrade the state’s antiquated system and are considering keeping the unemployment program for self-employed and gig workers around for the future.
COVID: Then and Now is a KYW Newsradio original monthlong series looking back at the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in Philadelphia. Reporters revisit the news from exactly one year ago and examine how protocols, restrictions and science have evolved since then.