Jaclyn Holt fills out an application at a job fair by the New Hampshire Employment Security agency. (Brian Snyder/Reuters/File)
Unemployment office jammed? Here’s how to file for benefits.
By Brendan Conway | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor/ January 12, 2009 edition
New York
Recently laid off?
So many Americans are joining the ranks of the unemployed that they’re clogging the unemployment lines. Literally.
The lines in front of unemployment offices are long. Their telephone lines are jammed. It’s so bad in some places that officials suspect that only half the calls are getting through.
Next time you’re contending with clogged phone lines or long waits at the unemployment office, here’s how to speed your inquiries and get through the benefits-claims process, state unemployment officials say:
• File via the Internet if possible. “The best advice I can say is, please go online,” says Loree Levy, spokeswoman for the California Employment Development Department.
• Offices and phone lines are busiest early in the week. In nonemergency cases, waiting until later in the week will speed processing.
• Try a public library if you do not have Internet access. In addition to offering benefits consultation, state unemployment offices frequently provide computer access. Just be prepared for long lines.
• Keep your information in one place. Be ready to provide all needed information when you reach an official on the phone or in person. “This is basic stuff, but just remembering the little things that it takes to collect your benefits will help the process go smoothly,” says Larry Parker, a public information officer for the Employment Security Commission of North Carolina.
• Take notes when you reach an official by phone. Write down the official’s name.
Above all, be patient, yet persistent, as you begin the journey toward a new job or career.
The Web page of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies contains links to unemployment offices, and more, in all 50 states.
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Comments
2. Glenn Lego | 01.17.09
I am finding that even the unemployment office has been downsized due to lack of state funding. So that makes the situation even worse. I am unemployed so I agree that filing on the internet is definitely the best course of action.
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1. Dale Jennings | 01.12.09
One way to break through the telephone log-jam at the State Unemployment offices is to use alternate language lines. For example in San Diego, California, after spending several days trying to get through, and countless hours on hold, only to have his calls dropped, I suggested that my nephew (whose checks had stopped mysteriously, although he had several weeks of benefits left) try calling the Vietnamese number listed in the Government Directory of the phone book for the State unemployment office. (The office listed phone lines in several languages other than English: Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese.)When my nephew protested that he didn’t speak Vietnamese, I told him that all the government workers at a State government office would speak English, and would be required to help whoever got through on whatever phone line. He tried the Vietnamese line and immediately got through and had his problem solved.