Thousands of Kansans are still awaiting unemployment benefits as the state department of labor struggles to keep up with the demand placed upon it during the pandemic.
Since March, Kansas has paid 3.2 million claims, totaling $2.3 billion. Acting Labor Secretary Ryan Wright.
“You have to go back eight years to get to $2 billion in payouts. So this agency has done about eight years worth of work in the span of about eight months,” he said.
Wright says in addition, the computer systems being used at the Department of Labor are more than 40 years old. Despite this, the number of regular unemployment claims have dwindled since June from 25,000 down to 6,100.
However, there are still 25,000 Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims backlogged due to an entirely new administrative system having to be created. Wright says a recently installed a critical piece of technology should to get many of those in the backlog paid sooner.
“We’re actually in the process of notifying all of those folks from that 25,000 backlog that they can now file the missing paperwork that we need and then we can then we can adjudicate them and get them paid,” he said.
Wright promises even though it may be delayed, if you have filed a claim, you will be paid.
“If you’re owed $1 from this agency, and your claim is found to be valid, you will get paid that money,” he said.
But time is of the essence, with the federal unemployment program set to expire Dec. 26, unless Congress takes action to extend that date.
“Even if these programs expire, if folks are waiting on a decision from us or they have a claim pending, we can still pay them out after that date, but we just can’t pay out new claims after that date,” he said.
Wright adds there has been a huge spike in fraudulent cases this year, with Kansas labor officials averaging roughly 2,300 fraudulent claims each day, totaling 157,000 cases so far.
If you think you may be a victim of fraud, visit reportfraud.ks.gov.
Wright was a recent guest on KMAN’s In Focus. His full interview can be found below.
