State Unemployment Issues Continue

PITTSBURGH — State leaders brought in 1,000 new workers, took employees from other departments and even asked retirees to come back to work. But the problems with the state’s unemployment system are still happening. “I’ll sit there for at least a half-hour while I’m watching the news and it continues to redial and nothing,” said James Hairston. Hairston is from Castle Shannon. He’s in the state’s unemployment system and even received a check before the pandemic happened. He said it’s been no money and no answer, though, since early March. “They instructed me to go to to the site and file one time to see if reactivates. I’ve been doing that for the last eight weeks,” he said. Hairston is just one of the 1.7 million Pennsylvanians filing unemployment claims. It’s led to an email backlog of nearly a month. “If someone hasn’t filed a claim yet because they can’t get a hold of them, we will still take them,” said Susan Dickinson, director of unemployment benefits. Dickinson said people who haven’t received an unemployment PIN number after three weeks to contact the office. A wrong address or other inaccurate information could be causing the delay. About $3.5 billion has already been paid out in unemployment compensation.