When asked in a recent interview about people having trouble getting through on the phone to the Labor Department about their unresolved unemployment claims, Gov. Phil Murphy expressed surprise people were still struggling to get through to New Jersey’s unemployment line.
“I have not heard ‘I can’t get through’ on your program in a while,” Murphy said last week during an episode of “Ask the Governor” on WBGO & WNYC.
Clinton, from Woodbury, was the very next caller. He too had a message for the governor: “It’s impossible to get them on the line.”
Dozens of workers tell NJ Advance Media they have similar experiences. They say after months of trying to get through by phone, they’re usually unsuccessful. And when they do connect with someone, agents promise they will get a call back, but the calls never come.
Murphy said during the radio interview it’s “unacceptable” people can’t get through to the Labor Department and that others are not getting promised calls back.
While the Labor Department has cleared much of its backlog and 1.5 million of the 1.8 million workers who filed for benefits have received at least one payment, others haven’t received a penny. That means there could be as many as 300,000 people who are either ineligible or whose claims are awaiting resolution.
Murphy and the Labor Department have said repeatedly that the vast majority of problem claims are complicated ones with quirks that are specific to a worker’s case.
Murphy repeated that at his Friday briefing. “It has been literally, almost if not literally 100% a particular issue to that person,” he said, referring to the past six months. “It wasn’t that they couldn’t get their phone answered.”
The Labor Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
There’s no disputing that many of the outstanding claims are complicated. And some applicants may have made a mistake on their application.
But the workers only want one thing: To be able to talk to a person who can actually take action and settle their claims.
FIXING AN ERROR
Ed Sandt of Hillsdale said he realized he made a mistake when he first filed for unemployment benefits, but it’s been more than five months and his case hasn’t been resolved.
Sandt works as a teacher, but his summer job as a pool manager was canceled because of the virus. He filed for unemployment for his summer job in early June.
But his two jobs cross over for about a week, so he said he was unsure how to answer the unemployment application question about when he worked last.
Sandt said he couldn’t get through to unemployment by phone, so he sent a letter in early July. No response.
He said he finally got through in mid-August.
“I explained the complexity of my claim to the agent and he made notes and told me he would speak to a supervisor and that I would probably get a call in the next few weeks, but it could be longer,” Sandt said.
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In late September or early October, he got a call from an agent who said Sandt wouldn’t get benefits for two overlapping weeks, but he should get benefits for the rest of the summer. He would see the money in four to eight weeks, he said he was told.
Within a week, Sandt said, he received a denial in the mail for those first two weeks.
“No mention of the rest of the summer. And I never heard anything else,” he said.
He spent the next several months trying to get through, to no avail.
Then in early December, he said, he received a call from an agent.
“She says, ‘Oh. I will have to pass this onto a supervisor. Hopefully you get a call from someone,’” he said. “Hopefully I get a call from someone? This is the best they could do after five months of my efforts to claim benefits I’ve earned?”
CROSS-STATE CONFUSION
Kelly Sisk lives in Pennsylvania but worked in New Jersey.
Her claim is complicated because of the timing of her unemployment.
Her initial claim was in 2019. She said she was able to work sporadically during that time, and the claim ended on March 8, 2020.
That’s when she received an email from the Labor Department saying she was eligible for the 13-week federal extension. She hoped the 20-week extension would follow.
When it didn’t come automatically, she hit the phones.
“I have called every phone number listed for unemployment at all times of the day daily. The recording comes on stating all representatives are busy and please call back on the next business day. At which time the line disconnects. Never a human,” she said.
On Sept. 21, Sisk said she received an automated email saying there was a 20-week extension and she should wait for instructions.
But now, months later, she hasn’t heard.
“I have just enough in the bank to pay my bills through January,” she said. “It has caused hardship.”
BENEFIT YEAR GLITCH
Lance Watson could be caught in the “benefit year glitch.”
He lost his job of 30 years as a manager of a small dispatching company when it shut down in 2019, before the pandemic. He collected unemployment benefits until January 2020, when he said he was unable to work because of a surgery.
He reapplied and started collecting in March, and his benefits were exhausted in June 2020 when his year was up.
“I was automatically granted the 13-week extension,” Watson said. “I collected about five weeks on the extension and then the unemployment portal stopped allowing me to certify for benefits.”
Then he started calling.
“I called the phone number provided and repeatedly received a recorded message stating `due to high call volume, your call can not be taken at this time. Please call back another day,’” he said.
Watson said he would call 10 or 15 times a day. After about a week, he said, he reached a live person.
“I was instructed that they will escalate my claim for review, that it should only take about 10 days to resolve the issue,” he said. “I was told to watch for an email that would advise that the issue was resolved.”
After three weeks with no email, he called again, and again, it took days to get through.
“The representative told me there was nothing she could do, to keep waiting for the email,” he said.
Three or four weeks later with no email, Watson said he called again, asking to speak to a manager when he got through.
“I was told there was no one who could help and that they were only authorized to tell me to wait for the email,” he said.
After another month, he said, he called his congressman’s office, which sent a request to the Department of Labor to ask for a review. A second and a third request followed without a response.
Next, Watson said, he wrote to the governor’s office. No response.
He called more Labor Department numbers, but the phone just rang and rang, he said.
“Not one person from the Department of Labor has called, emailed or regular mailed me at any time to resolve this issue,” Watson said. “For the last 27 weeks, I have been surviving off of my savings that has rapidly been depleted. If we do not receive help soon, I fear my wife and I will lose everything we have worked our whole lives for.”
“I have come to the conclusion that the Department of Labor and Gov. Murphy have completely abandoned the people of New Jersey,” he said.
FOUR MISSING MONTHS OF BENEFITS
Dylan O’Byrne, also first applied for benefits before the pandemic started.
The Wood-Ridge man worked as a logistics coordinator for the television and film industry, and he was out of work in December.
When March came, he reopened the claim because the entertainment industry largely shut down.
“The call center is non-existent,” he said. “Can’t get through at all. Impossible.”
He searched online and found an agent’s phone number. When he got through, the agent said his claim would be updated, O’Byrne said.
That was three months ago and the number has since been disconnected, he said.
“I have now been without benefits for four months,” he said. “I started working again last week, and if things start getting bad again and I need to reapply for unemployment benefits, I’m afraid it will take even longer.”
O’Byrne, who is now studying to be a certified financial planner, considers himself lucky. He calls himself a “super saver” so he’s been living off his nest egg.
“People have families, children, mouths to feed, and are being told to sit, wait and hope,” O’Byrne said.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com.
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