On Sunday, Jan. 24, the Butler Eagle reported that Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry Acting Secretary Jennifer Berrier announced that for those who are eligible — gig workers, freelancers and the self-employed — a $300-per-week unemployment check, per claimant, was on its way.

However, a press release on the previous Friday notes this only applies to those who signed up for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program last year. It’s not for new applicants, but the office will notify those who are eligible when they can claim at an unspecified later date.

Meanwhile, Butler County workers who were laid off, and are looking for standard compensation, are frustrated by the complete lack of claimant issue resolution and communication by Labor & Industry.

A spokeswoman for the office said the staff had to almost triple in size to handle the enormous caseload caused by the pandemic economic downturn. It still wasn’t enough to deal with glitches and issues in the compensation efforts.

We won’t go into the hours waiting for a call to get answered by a human being about claims. Despite multiple attempts, a Butler resident who works in Beaver Falls could not get in touch with a claims representative to get answers.

Weeks had passed and frustrations mounted. The Butler Eagle reported on them, experienced by those laid off with little or no answers from Labor & Industry and the local public officials who were trying to help the claimants.

It wasn’t until Jan. 26 that Labor & Industry came out with a release on its website about its technical problems. Frustrations were building up for months with little or no communication from the state office.

Then on Jan. 27, an email was sent out to those enrolled in unemployment compensation in 2020 that the (apparently understaffed) office had resolved some issues. Finally!

Why this obtuse lack of communication when people’s livelihoods were at stake?

Some of the issues that Labor & Industry (FINALLY) fixed and communicated about regarding the pandemic assistance program, and steps taken to resolve them, according to the email, are:

- Some claimants were seeing the option of “COVID-19-2” when asked “What was the major disaster?” This option has been removed.

- When attempting to reopen their claim, claimants who identify as self-employed are being asked for 2020 wages. This is an error and claimants should enter 0s for all wages until a permanent fix is in place.

- Some claimants have reported being unable to change a drop-down box that labels them as a “permanent resident.” These claimants self-identified as a permanent resident at a previous point in filing.

- If you self-identified as permanent resident by mistake and are a U.S. citizen, and haven’t already done so, upload your birth certificate, passport or information to show your citizenship status.

- Claimants who are permanent residents and self-identified as such will not receive benefits until Labor & Industry verifies their work status. If you haven’t done so already, you should upload your permanent resident/visa information to your dashboard.

- Some claimants were experiencing an “endless loop” where they are returned to the main screen while trying to file their claim. This has been fixed, according to Labor & Industry.

Some issues remain “outstanding,” according to Labor & Industry:

- Some claimants are only able to file for the current claim week and are not provided the options of the claim weeks ending Jan. 2, 9 and 16.

- Some claimants only received payments for the week of the Jan. 23 but not Jan. 2, 9 or 16. Some of these payments were re-sent to the state treasury department and should begin appearing in claimants’ accounts soon, but others remain outstanding.

In the email sent out to claimants, Labor & Industry noted its office is “actively working to resolve the outstanding issues and will provide regular updates on the program status. Affected claimants do not need to take any action at this time.”

The office gives its email as a contact point: ucpua@pa.gov.

But why have months passed since the pandemic layoffs began and only now does the department finally start to communicate these issues? Why did this take so long?

— AA