State Republicans Knew of Problems with Unemployment Processing Since 2014 |
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News |
Written by Wisconsin Senate, Jay Wadd |
Wednesday, 27 May 2020 09:42 |
http://newiprogressive.com/images/stories/S5/unemployment-application-wi-gb-s5.jpg MADISON - State Senator Dave Hansen (D-Green Bay) said Tuesday that Republicans knew of the state’s unemployment system’s inability to handle large numbers of applications but did nothing to fix the problem. According to an audit conducted by the state’s non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau in fiscal year 2013-2014 1.7 million calls, or 60.2% were blocked. “From December 2013 through January 2014, more than 80.0 percent of the 836,700 calls to the telephone line for initial claims were blocked.”
In order to keep up with the avalanche of applications the agency hired 1,300 new staff to process and investigate applications, added a new call center and expanded the department’s hours of operations to seven days a week and extended hours on weekdays. “Governor Evers and Secretary Frostman and all the people at Workforce Development are doing yeoman’s work trying to get everyone the benefits they need and deserve. But no one is helped by all of this Republican sniping and faux concern for workers history has shown they do not care about.” “If they truly want to help they should work with our Governor to solve this problem instead of trying to use it for their own political gain.” |
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