About 200,000 Oregon jobless claims filed during coronavirus outbreak haven’t been paid

Nearly half of Oregon jobless claims filed during the coronavirus outbreak have gone unpaid, the state disclosed Wednesday, significantly ratcheting up the scale of the state’s benefits crisis.

The Oregon Employment Department told a legislative hearing that approximately 220,000 claims have yet to be paid, well over two months into the outbreak. After the hearing, though, the department’s spokeswoman said the actual number is closer to 200,000.

Employment department leaders discussed the issue for the first time Wednesday at a state legislative hearing as they endeavored to persuade lawmakers that they have a plan to deal with the enormous volume of unpaid claims.

“Thousands of Oregonians have been left wondering if their benefits will arrive in time to pay their bills,” acknowledged department director Kay Erickson in her first public comments on the crisis in more than a month.

“For the thousands of Oregonians who are still waiting,” Erickson said, “I do apologize.”

Her presentation consumed the entire hour of the scheduled testimony, leaving no time for lawmakers’ questions. Committee Chairman Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, instructed his colleagues to submit written questions instead.

Oregon has fielded 440,000 jobless claims since the middle of March, according to David Gerstenfeld, director of a division within the employment department. He testified that a little more than 220,000 claims have been paid.

The math for determining just how many people have unpaid claims is extremely complex.

The total 440,000 claims Oregon reported Wednesday excludes thousands who filed for a new class of jobless benefits for self-employed workers that Congress created in March.

However, the employment department estimated Wednesday night that the 220,000 unpaid claims it disclosed at the legislative hearing includes up to 25,000 self-employed workers who had filed previously for regular benefits, before the state had established a separate application process for them.

That would lower the total number of regular, unpaid claims to as few as 195,000. But thousands of those self-employed workers haven’t been paid, either, from the newly created program. The state hasn’t said just how many are waiting for their money.

The department had previously disclosed that it had processed 366,000 regular claims, but until Wednesday it had not said how many of those processed claims it has actually paid.

Among the regular claims that Oregon has processed but hasn’t paid, Gerstenfeld said some are duplicate claims, others are newly filed, and some are especially complicated. Many others are simply backlogged.

In normal times it takes about three weeks for new jobless claims to be paid, according to the employment department.

Oregon, like other states, is dealing with an unprecedented spike in jobless claims. The state’s unemployment rate jumped from a historic low in March, 3.5%, to a record high of 14.2% in April.

The state is also dealing with an antiquated computer system that dates to the 1990s, which has complicated efforts to cope with the influx of claims – especially because of recent changes in the benefits program that Congress authorized to deal with impacts from the coronavirus outbreak.

Oregon received more than $85 million in federal funding to upgrade the system in 2009 but has only begun the process in the last few years. It won’t be complete until 2025.

The employment department’s phone system is hopelessly overwhelmed by the crisis. Relatively few calls get through and callers routinely spend several hours on hold – and most of those calls are never answered, according to employment department data.

Employment department hold times

Jobless Oregonians routinely spend several hours on hold with the Oregon Employment Department when seeking information about their claims. This claimant spent eight hours on hold Tuesday before the call disconnected.Reader submitted photo

On Wednesday, Erickson reiterated that her department has increased the number of people processing claims from around 100 before the outbreak to roughly 700 now. She said the department is assigning more experienced claims processors to older, complex claims in an effort to clear its backlog.

Additionally, the employment department disclosed Wednesday that her department is working with Google in an effort to make the claims process more efficient and user-friendly for self-employed workers, who hadn’t been eligible for benefits before the outbreak.

At Wednesday’s hearing of the state House Interim Committee on Business and Labor, Erickson and Gerstenfeld gave a slideshow presentation, going over the issues facing the employment department and providing an extensive history of the unemployment claims system.

The presentation consumed all the allotted time, so lawmakers had no opportunity to weigh in on the situation or question Erickson and her deputy.

That exasperated Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, who said Oregonians deserve answers on “how we ended up I this mess, when the agency realized they had a problem” and other issues.

“This is just the latest glaring example of lack of accountability under our state’s leadership,” Boshart Davis said in a written statement after the meeting. “This is a deeply human crisis and the state has failed miserably. Oregonians deserve answers.”

This article has been updated to revise the number of unpaid claims from 220,000 to around 200,000 and to address the complicated math behind the number of unpaid claims.

-- Mike Rogoway | mrogoway@oregonian.com | twitter: @rogoway |

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