Hi all.
Some of you may know that I am very fortunately employed where I live. I drive a bus at the nearby Bentley University, and I conveniently live between the campus and the bus yard, within walking distance of both.
We drove happily all last semester, then parked the busses for the summer the weekend before Memorial Day last May. Part of the allure of the work is that I have summers off. I was looking forward very much to travelling, going away to Scout Camp, and taking in some baseball games. Something I simply did not have the time to do with my previous work in tourism and retail.
I applied for unemployment benefits the week before Memorial Day, then promptly went on the road for two weeks to visit relatives, friends, and my very favourite rodent in the entire state of Florida.
Returning home, I was home a week, and then made it away to T.L. Storer Scout Reservation, part of the staff for a week-long youth training course called “National Youth Leadership Training”. A successful week was had by all, and I returned home to see what my next move would be. I filed for all the weeks of unemployment I had pending, and waited for a deposit to be made to my account.
First, one week went by. Then two. Then a month. I filed diligently every Monday, but my account only ever said “Pending while an issue is resolved”. At this point, things were going south. My landlord was clambering for rent; credit cards were pending, and utilities started to fall behind. What the hell was going on?
I next spent more than four days on various iterations of hold, and no-callback automation from our friends at DUA. I finally got through to somebody there, and I had a couple of ‘questionnaires’ pending - things that I had never seen notice of on the website. Nevertheless, questions were answered, and things seemed to be ready to move at last.
But nothing came of it, and I then made an appointment for an in-person visit. There were a plethora of long faces in the waiting hall, and there was one gentleman that got into a colorful argument with the clerk - he had been in the office three times already over the last six weeks, with no resolution in sight. Finally my turn, we reviewed everything, but the frazzled lady had no idea why my case was still pending. She promised to expedite it for review. Satisfied, I left that behind.
The following week, three major events happened within a week of each other. Mrs. TriSec and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary. The pipes backed up in our basement, flooding our unit with raw sewage, and the landlord served us with an eviction notice for non-payment. Fun times!
I am personal friends with the mayor of Waltham, so I walked down to City Hall to see if there was anything that could be done through official channels. As it turns out, there is a major issue with the unemployment office this summer. They are overwhelmed, shorthanded, and at the end of the school year, they had a major system upgrade. It all made for a perfect storm, and when things couldn’t be resolved easily, they ended up in a ‘pended’ status for what seemed like an eternity.
I wasn’t imagining things, and it finally ended up on the news.
BOSTON —
The unemployment rate in Massachusetts has been rising this year. It's now 4.8 percent, half a point higher than the national average. And many of those out of work say they've experienced long delays this summer trying to collect unemployment benefits from the state, raising questions about whether staffing at the state agency that pays out benefits is sufficient.
The unemployment delays can be another hit for people who are already down.
After 10 years of service, losing his job came as a total surprise to Andrew Benack this May.
"It simply evaporated one day," he said of his job. "Due to restructuring under a new company president, they wanted to change the role into something more junior."
While he began his search for a new job, he knew he had unemployment to help, or at least he thought he did. Despite filing in mid-May, he saw no money from the state through June, July and even into August. For 12 weeks, his unemployment claims simply said "pending" while "an issue is resolved."
Benack says getting to the bottom of that issue was its own full-time job. He says numerous calls to the Department of Unemployment Assistance left him with no explanation other than his file is awaiting a review from an adjuster. That's little comfort for someone trying to make the mortgage payment and get his kids through college.
"When you talk to somebody on the phone and you say, 'All right, well, how long will I have to wait?' Or 'What's my position in the queue?' You don't get answers," he said. "The unknown is the worst."
Benack isn't alone. Complaints about unemployment surged this summer, with numerous people telling NewsCenter 5 they've struggled with similar delays. Those include school employees laid off in the summer months, like cafeteria workers or bus drivers.
I was finally able to get my own case resolved, but it took a further ten days, and multiple calls to the office of my state representative, Tom Stanley. With the help of his office, my outstanding issues were finally resolved, and I at last got my 12 weeks of pending benefits at the beginning of August.
I went back to work on August 18, and wonder of wonders - now that we’re all making money again, I can pay bills, I can pay rent, and we can eat something other than ramen and leftovers from my son’s work. (He’s a chef, thankfully.)
But the eviction notice was still pending. We had a court date earlier this week, and we met very briefly with our landlord’s attorney. She saw a sudden uptick in payments, I told what had happened, and she literally shook her head and said “It should have never come to this. Let’s deal.” Ten minutes later, we have a payment plan, and we were in the clear. Relating the story to the Clerk of the Court while she was copying our paperwork, she said without really saying that most of the people in housing court recently have been because of the mess that unemployment payments have become.
This is not federal. Trump has nothing to do with this. Part of my state taxes pay for Unemployment Insurance. This affected the other guys that I work with - our lead driver had a delay of the same 12 weeks, while another driver did better; he only had to wait 8 weeks before he got his money.
I sure hope this doesn’t happen again next summer - but at least this time I can be better prepared. The last time we had this much trouble was back during the Great Recession. During COVID, at least, the state was literally throwing money at us, and we actually came out ahead.