Many people are continuing to wait on their unemployment payments since they lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic.
Senator Devin LeMahieu, who represents District 9, says that the state government has continued to work to help everyone affected by COVID-19 financially. “It’s actually been a really busy 3-4 months,” LeMahieu explained. Part of that has been, “Unfortunately trying to help the backlog of people their unemployment claims.”
According to the Oostburg native, there is still a backlog of over 130,000 people who are waiting on their check so they can provide for their families.
He said that the Department of Workforce Development was given the ability to hire additional people to help deal with the issue back in April when the Pandemic Relief Bill was passed, however LeMahieu said “Now here we are four months later and unfortunately we are still not seeing them caught up yet.”
LeMahieu says it’s great to see most businesses back up and running again, and many of them are having really good numbers in sales due to people not taking vacations, and spending their money locally.
