Some Massachusetts residents haven’t received the unemployment benefits they are owed for six weeks due to mismanagement at the Baker-Polito Administration’s Department of Unemployment Assistance (DUA). Frustration is rising over this massive delay, compounded by the DUA’s lack of transparency about what the problems are and reliable information about when benefits will be received. Hundreds of thousands of workers, unemployed due to the pandemic, have navigated an unnecessarily complicated process to file a claim for unemployment benefits. Although the delays are worse now, delays in receiving benefits aren’t new. In December, the Baker-Polito Administration’s DUA was delivering benefits to eligible workers within 14 days only 58% of the time and 10% of eligible workers had to wait over 70 days to receive their benefits. Without their unemployment benefits, many unemployed workers can’t pay the rent and are worried about eviction (given that the Administration ended the state’s eviction moratorium in October). There are, of course, heating and other bills to worry about too, and some workers are struggling to pay for food given the delays in their unemployment benefits. This is another example of the Baker-Polito Administration’s pandemic mismanagement, on top of the mismanagement of vaccinations, testing, and the pandemic response overall. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/11/opinion/lack-transparency-an-antiquated-website-backlog-unemployment-claims/
By John Lippitt