After days of lines, frustration, Beshear pledges to increase in-person unemployment help

Gov. Andy Beshear Thursday pledged to provide more people with the opportunity to resolve issues with their unemployment claims in person, after three days of people driving from all over the Commonwealth to wait hours in line for help.

“What we’ve learned is face to face is really important. It’s really, really important,” Beshear said. “We are seeing more claims resolved in the last several days and today, people getting very definitive answers before they leave. We are going to make sure that here moving out, there are more face-to-face opportunities in every single community so you don’t have to drive.”

He pledged either to reopen unemployment offices throughout the state in two weeks or have a group of employees travel the state to make it easier for people to get in-person help with their claims. In person help has been restricted over the past four months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But he also warned that the thousands of claims that still haven’t been resolved, and the process that makes it difficult to resolve them, won’t be fixed over night.

“It’s going to be a process to come out of it. I wish I could tell people it’s going to happen tomorrow,” Beshear said. “That wouldn’t be being honest with them.”

The number of initial unemployment claims that have been filed in Kentucky is the equivalent of more than 40 percent of the workforce, one of the highest percentages in the country.

Frustration among people who have waited months for their unemployment claims to be processed boiled over this week. A planned protest Tuesday caused the state to set up an impromptu unemployment office on the Capitol grounds. Once word got out, hundreds of people flooded into Frankfort to get help with their claims.

“What are we going to do as a state?” said Latia Greenwell, 28, from Louisville, who had been waiting with her four and eight year old children since 7:30 a.m. Thursday and still hadn’t been seen by noon. “Somebody has got to fix this.”

Greenwell filed her claim on March 29 and still had not received any payment.

Photos and videos of the long lines of people — some of whom have arrived early in the morning or who have camped out overnight — have made national news. On Wednesday, a group of 67 people who had waited in line for 10 hours were turned away at the door because the system shut down at 7 p.m. so that applications could be sent to the federal government to be processed.

Beshear said the administration took steps to ensure that people will not be turned away at the door again. On Thursday, the state set up two lines, one for people who filed in March and one for everyone else. Everyone who waited received a ticket and those that may not be seen tonight — even though the system will be able to operate until 8 p.m. — will be able to show their ticket Friday and jump straight to the head of the line.

The state also increased the number of people resolving claims at the in-person center from 14 on Wednesday to 29 on Thursday.

Beshear did not say whether there will be in-person help in Frankfort next week, saying instead that he intends for everyone who has driven to Frankfort over the past three days — people like Jessie Krzyzewski, who drove from Benton two days in a row with his fiance and was turned away both days — to receive help by Tuesday.

“We’ve got to make it easier on people who cannot get away from their communities,” Beshear said.

When asked about why so many people had flocked to Frankfort for help, Beshear pinned the blame on the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin, who cut down the number of unemployment offices in the state in 2017; the fact that the system was designed to turn away people who are now eligible to receive aid; and the fact that there have been so many unemployment claims because of people out of work from COVID-19.

“We had a system that was designed to tell you no. It was,” Beshear said. “No if you’re an independent contractor, no if you’re a substitute teacher at a church, no if you checked the wrong box. Just no. And hoping you wouldn’t come back. My belief is a lot of our law was structured that way.”

Beshear said he would like to upgrade the system so that when someone files, the computer warns them that there’s an error and tells them how to correct it. He said he wants more “Tier 3” employees — the people who have been trained to resolve complicated issues — and he wants them to be available at unemployment offices throughout the state.

People will be able to get in-help at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services building at 275 E. Main St. on Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. There will be a separate line for people who filed claims in March and April.

This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 5:55 PM.