The difference between theory and practice...

[sonia]

... is smaller in theory than in practice.

I applied for unemployment benefits when I first heard that self-employed people were eligible (in theory), on March 29. A week later, and a couple of weeks after that, I got the same email acknowledging receipt of my application. The system would accept weekly updates, but not really admit my case existed otherwise.

I applied again when I first heard that self-employed people had to follow a different process, on April 28. I was pleased that I had completed my 2019 federal taxes by April 15 despite the deadline extension, because they were required to prove my self-employment income. I uploaded the form and the taxes. I continued uploading weekly updates in the new format even though the system still wasn't really admitting my case existed.

Last Wednesday May 20, almost 2 full months after my initial application, I got a paper letter from the Unemployment Department. They admitted my case exists! They gave me a "customer ID"! I can now register for direct deposit in the system!

Infuriatingly, despite the fact that I uploaded my taxes to demonstrate that I am due the princely maximum of $648/week, they assigned me the lowest level of benefits, $205/week. That would still be nice with the additional $600/week from the federal government, except that I have made and reported more that $205/week every single week from online sessions, which means I get zippo, zilch, nada.

I immediately wrote them an email appealing the amount and asking whether they want me to re-upload my taxes and what else they need to verify my income. I also sent a paper letter with a copy of my taxes, since it's easy for emails to get lost. No response so far, of course.

On Saturday May 23, I got a stack of 9 envelopes from the Unemployment Department. "Checks!" I thought. Maybe they sent the federal stipend after all. Fortunately I had time to think about it while I finished eating my lunch, and indeed when I opened them it was a stack of denials for each week I had claimed benefits, with bonus "You did it wrong and need to restart your claim" for some of them.

I tried to call them yesterday, Monday May 25. At some point as I wended my way through their exceedingly slowly spoken phone tree, they mentioned that deposits would be delayed for Memorial Day. Hmm... Sure enough, way out on a far branch of the phone tree, I reached an announcement that their offices are closed. I started trying today shortly after 8am and got busy signals every time.

So today I am trying to figure out what they might want to restart my claim. Of course there are no instructions for that for self-employed folks. Apparently they didn't imagine that we might keep working a little bit as best we could, and GOOD THING given how long it's taking to turn theoretical benefits into dollars in a bank account.

I am so grateful that I have the resources to weather this. And I am so frustrated that having done everything according to their process as best I could, and waited patiently all this time, I'm still not getting what's due to me. Who knows if I ever will, or if they'll l continue to be unreachable by phone and do things wrong on the back end.

(The couple of people I've chatted with about this have immediately jumped to talking about the poor overwhelmed unemployment department workers. Just... don't.)

Comments

[sanguinity]

I don't know if this is useful at all, but House Speaker Tina Kotek has been asking people to get in touch with her if they're having trouble with their unemployment claims. Don't know how much her office can help you, but I do know her office has been trying to get answers for people.

[sonia]

Oooh! Thanks! Perhaps I will! I've been spending the time since I posted putting together a letter and sorting through all the paperwork, and I'm still going to send that in, but perhaps a nudge to the system would also be helpful. So good to know there's some recourse.

I really do want to let the nice unemployment dept people do their jobs in peace - but they have to DO them!

[sanguinity]

Yeah, grrlpup spent some time looking at the website today in preparation for filing a claim possibly next week (she'll be going on a one-day-a-week furlough), and she is very much not looking forward to the bureaucratic hoop-jumping.

Fingers crossed for you!

[sonia]

Thank you!

I'm sure grrlpup will sort it out, and if I can provide any info, she's welcome to reach out.

[sanguinity]

I've passed on your offer to grrlpup, thank you!

This in Senator Michael Dembrow's newsletter tonight:

I’ve previously mentioned the series of Tuesday/Thursday webinars that Work Systems Inc. (the Portland metro area workforce development agency) has been holding to help laid-off workers navigate the bureaucracy in the midst of the current economic crisis. I’ve just learned that tomorrow’s webinar will focus on Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and will include someone from the department’s PUA unit to answer questions and give advice. If you have already participated in one of the earlier WSI Thursday webinars, your previous Zoom link will still work. If not, you need to register in advance at https://www.worksystems.org/node/539.

No idea if that webinar will be helpful, but I thought I should pass it on.

[sonia]

Thank you! You are a fount of useful information! I registered and hopefully will be able to stay through to the question and answer period.

I also left a phone message and sent a more detailed email to Tina Kotek's office. Thanks again!
ETA: Just got a nice reply from a staff person at 9pm!

[sanguinity]

I hope it helps!

Dembrow and Kotek both send out daily emails that contain a wealth of practical information about the Oregon and Multnomah responses to the pandemic. I've gotten a lot of good info from them, and I've found their newsletters calming in a way that the news often isn't. (YMMV, of course!)

[sonia]

Worth a try, thanks. I can always unsubscribe again. All of a sudden local news has become riveting! I've even taken to checking oregonlive.com regularly, which is how I found out about the PUA application process. Before, my opinion was in line with my favorite .sig ever: "If it's important to Oregonians, it's in the Eugene Register-Guard." (Observed in the wild, not my .sig.)

[jesse_the_k]

I'm with you there -- I've subscribed to my Mayor's updates, and I put down actual money for my city's (pretty terrible, tbh) newspaper. Absent national leadership, local news is truly a life line.

[sanguinity]

Tina Kotek had another thing about the UI department in tonight's newsletter. (Not as directly relevant as some of the other things I passed on, I don't think.) But if you're subscribed, I'll stop passing these on.

[sonia]

Thank you! I thought I was subscribed now, but I didn't get tonight's newsletter (yet). I did go to the webinar you told me about, which was all Q&A, but I had to leave after half an hour to work (ironically!) and I have not dug into finding the recording. I emailed and asked them to send me a link, but of course they didn't.

Even if Tina Kotek's office can't help me, it was still such a relief to HEAR BACK from someone! And it may have been mostly a form letter, but it was well-written enough that I felt like they care about my case.

[rosefox]

I second trying to reach out to your state/local elected officials if you can't get through. Our state senator was absolutely essential to getting a UI snafu sorted out for us many years ago. (J was so astonished. He hadn't realized anyone actually did constituent service. But they do!)

[sonia]

Thanks for the info! Have left a message with Tina Kotek's office. I suppose being able to leave a message without busy signals or waiting on hold endlessly is already a step up, but I thought I'd be speaking with a staff member. Oh well!

[runpunkrun]

That is so frustrating and disheartening. <3

[sonia]

Thanks for the empathy! <3

[silveradept]

I have always heard the process for unemployment insurance is labyrinthine by design, and it is not encouraging to hear that it continues to be so, despite many more people trying to use the system now for their survival.

[sonia]

I'm sure other states are actively malicious, but I don't think that's what's going on here. I've had surprisingly good experiences over the years with Oregon and Portland officials. In this case I think it's not so much malice as an ancient, inflexible, unscalable system suddenly subject to 10x load. Everything says "Call this number in case of problems." I tried this morning at 7am and it was already a busy signal, which means their 3 hour queue was already full.

As a small bit of evidence, I found the speech in their voicemail tree annoyingly slow, but I realized later that would be so helpful for someone still learning English.

Imagine if your workplace had 10 times the patrons from one day to the next, and that continued unabated for months.

[silveradept]

Yes, it's a system strained beyond capacity, but it seems like the right thing to do in that situation is scale up (as we my workplace was getting a whole many more people coming in during the last recession) rather than let people languish outside the services they need.

[sonia]

"unscalable"

[silveradept]

Right, missed that, clearly, but also, how is it unscalable? The pot of money available to give out in benefits might not be increasing, but it appears like there would be the possibility of being able to throw more people at the problem of more people trying to complete the application so they can at least get into the system. And then to have more people doing the processing. I don't think it would be instantaneous improvement, but it seems doable, at least in theory.

[sonia]

I do believe they're scaling up to the extent possible. I think they've tripled employees so far. In another few months, they'll be scaled up to 10x with people, at which point (hopefully!) the surge will have passed. There's a limit to how fast you can train people, add managers for them, etc.

These unemployment systems are written in COBOL. Few experts available these days, and COBOL systems are messy and hard to edit.

I agree with you that it should be better. People's welfare should be the first priority across society, and our safety nets should be strong and resilient, rather than neglected and in some states actively destroyed.

[silveradept]

Ah, that was knowledge I did not have that they were trying to add more capacity. That only goes so quickly, as you said.

Of course, it would be nice to have a country with a functioning and properly maintained social safety net. All over and everywhere. Preferably running something more recent than COBOL. (Yes, it works, I'm sure, but ye goodness.)

[jesse_the_k]

If it's any consolation, the same nonsense is happening in Wisconsin, where UI started in 1932. (Of course, our civil service was systematically dismantled *la la la la* /stopping now).