Ohio's unemployed grow desperate as they wait for jobless benefits to resume

COLUMBUS — Like many Ohioans whose fortunes continue to be battered by pandemic, Ashanti Byers is growing more desperate by the day for her unemployment benefits to resume. "I'm on the verge of being evicted," the 47-year-old Akron grandmother said last week. "I'm hiding my vehicle so it can't get repoed." The choices she has to make with the little money she has are difficult. "It's really hard. You have to decide to keep the electric on, or are you going to eat?" Byers had a job braiding hair. She stopped working when the pandemic struck to reduce the risk of getting sick and to protect her 2-year-old grandson, who has Kawasaki disease. She collected unemployment benefits under a federal program that was created to help those not typically eligible for unemployment benefits. For months, Byers collected unemployment benefits from one of several programs created by the federal government to help workers manage through the pandemic, including those not eligible for traditional state unemployment programs. As with so many workers, Byers' benefits ran out in December, and while Congress and former President Donald Trump did extend them just after Christmas, not all of the new benefits have arrived in bank accounts from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The agency says it is working as fast as it can to get the money to those entitled to it, but that's little comfort for those who say they can't wait any longer. "We hear the same thing: just be patient, relax, you're going to get your money, it'll be retroactive," Kimberly Roman of Holland, near Toledo, who was laid off in March from her job at Midwest Tape, said in an email. "In the meantime, we are having our utilities shut off, our internet service shut off, our cell phones shut off, people are losing their cars to repossession, people cannot feed their families, waiting to be approved for food stamps." Roman's benefits resumed this week after she received her last check at the end of December. She also said the unemployed are irritated with the lack of help or inconsistent answers they have gotten from the agency and from politicians when they seek help. In one especially difficult week, she said she spent 21 hours on the phone with the agency trying to get answers to questions. One time, Roman, 59, said she was told by a JFS worker, "Well, if you're that worried about it, quit being so greedy about it and get a job." Then the worker hung up on Roman. Gov. Mike DeWine acknowledges the frustration people are having. "I can make all the excuses in the world," DeWine said last week at one of his coronavirus briefings. "I could stand here, but that doesn't do anybody any good who's not getting a check. I mean, there's reasons for this, but we got to get it fixed and we're going to do it." This week, Ohio paid nearly $100 million to more than 11,000 Ohioans receiving traditional unemployment, the state said Thursday. This represents some extended weeks of benefits plus an additional $300 a week, which were included with the new federal aid. Starting Saturday, more than 155,000 Ohioans started seeing benefits from the recent federal stimulus legislation. By the end of the month, all benefits will become available. The most recent complaints come as benefits ran out for many workers in December. Those workers waited or have been waiting for weeks for benefits to resume. They were part of the latest stimulus bill approved by Congress and signed into law by Trump just after Christmas. That people aren't getting the benefits they desperately need is concerning, said Zach Schiller, research director at the liberal leaning Policy Matters Ohio. "We have many Ohioans whose lives are hanging in the balance, whose families are going to need help to pay the rent or put food on the table," he said. Part of the issue is that the agency has been swamped with claims. Just last week, the agency received 47,786 new claims for benefits. Before the pandemic, the agency was getting a few thousand claims each week. The nearly 2.3 million claims that were filed since the pandemic began is more than the combined total of the claims filed during the last five years. The agency also has ramped up staffing to deal with the flood of calls, but the result, unemployed workers say, is confusion over claims and how they're handled. The unemployed say they get better answers from their peers on social media. Job and Family Services says it has taken time to get its technology set up so payments can resume under the various federal programs. Those payments are gradually being reinstated, depending on the program. "It's not as easy as it sounds. That's not the most satisfying answer," Director Kimberly Henderson told reporters recently. "My team has been working day and night for the past 10 months, and millions of Ohioans are benefiting from the food assistance, unemployment compensation, children's services, child support, child care and workforce development assistance that my single agency is providing under my leadership. "This is the most challenging role of my career, but I get up every morning with one thing in mind: leading with integrity to the best degree I can," she said. The agency is currently paying benefits to more than 245,000 Ohioans. Ohio is by far not the only state that has struggled to get money to people from the recent stimulus package. About half of states got the money from two key unemployment programs — Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation — within two weeks of the bill being approved on Dec. 27, according to the Century Foundation. Ohio was not among them. The pandemic "is just what we had in the Great Recession times 10," said Jane Oates, president of the nonprofit WorkingNation, a nonprofit working to raise awareness about the issues facing American workers. She also was an assistant secretary in the Labor Department during the Obama administration. States neglected their computer systems and the personnel who run them in the years running up to the pandemic, she said. And the new programs that have been set up in the pandemic to help workers are far more complicated than traditional unemployment benefits, she said. The delays have taken a toll on unemployed workers, she said. "They've dug into their savings, they start collecting (benefits), they're called back to work, they go back to work, there is a delay in their first week's check, six weeks later they get laid off again. They've never had a chance to replenish their savings," Oates said. "By January, these people have nothing left." On top of that, states have been plagued with massive claims of fraud that Ohio employment officials have blamed for some of the delays in handling claims. The fraud has been so bad that claims for benefits have even been filed in the names of Gov. Mike DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. One woman, who asked that her named not be disclosed, told The Dispatch she received a tax form from Job and Family Services in the name of her husband showing someone claimed $8,769 in unemployment benefits in his name. He died four years ago. "I knew immediately that it was identity theft," she said. All of that is little comfort to those who are desperate for help. "I hope I get paid soon. I have bills coming due soon. I can't pay bills out of thin air," said Rochelle Selder of Columbus, who has depended on pandemic unemployment benefits to provide for her two children. DeWine said he wants to bring in people outside of government to help the agency. "It is abundantly clear that the state government cannot fix this the way I want it fixed," he said. "And so we're going out into the private sector." On Thursday, DeWine announced the formation of a new team that includes experts on loan from Ohio's biggest banks and insurers, including Fifth Third Bank, Nationwide and Encova. Henderson said Wednesday she believes that those in banking and insurance can be helpful by, for example, assistance in processing large numbers of claims and providing help in addressing the problem with fraudulent claims. "In many respects the novel coronavirus gave us novel experiences across the board in terms of how we respond to very large scale needs, and that's where we believe the private sector can be especially helpful," she said. "Frankly, I'm looking forward to and the team is looking forward to the reinforcements," she said. ___ (c)2021 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Visit The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) at www.dispatch.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.