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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2020
Lawmakers question state employment offi cials Washington state
Thousands of claims
remain unprocessed
By PETER WONG
Oregon Capital Bureau
Oregon lawmakers will
get a new chance to question
offi cials about the much-crit-
icized performance of the
Employment Department in
handling a record number of
claims during the shutdown
of business activity in the
coronavirus pandemic.
The House Business and
Labor Committee has sched-
uled a session from 9 a.m. to
noon Saturday, which will be
livestreamed on the Oregon
Legislature’s website.
Members on Wednesday
heard from two agency offi -
cials who did virtually all the
speaking during an hourlong
presentation that allowed no
time for questions.
House Speaker Tina
Kotek, D-Portland, released a
statement Thursday:
“Chair Paul Holvey was
unsatisfi ed with what the
committee heard from Ore-
gon Employment Depart-
ment Director Kay Erick-
son and her deputy David
Gerstenfeld and asked the
speaker (Kotek) yesterday
afternoon to provide an addi-
tional opportunity to hear
from them to further answer
the committee’s questions.”
In addition to processing a
record 400,000-plus regular
unemployment claims since
Gov. Kate Brown’s exec-
utive orders took effect in
mid-March, the agency has
had to handle three new pro-
grams passed by Congress
that extended benefi ts and
expanded eligibility.
Also, 38,000 of the
400,000 claims still remain
unprocessed. A processed
claim, however, does not
mean that the person is
receiving benefi ts.
“I appreciate the new
programs you are having to
manage, which is diffi cult,”
Holvey said when he closed
the meeting Wednesday. “But
we still have a lot of peo-
Unemployment jumped
by more than 20% in April
By EDWARD
STRATTON
The Astorian
Clatsop
County’s
unemployment shot up
by more than 20% to a
record 24.4% in April
after more than 4,800
job losses, according to
the state Employment
Department.
The state released
unemployment statis-
tics for April, provid-
ing the fi rst glimpse of
the coronavirus pan-
demic’s impact on over-
all employment. More
than 4,200 people in the
county have applied for
unemployment
since
mid-March.
In a usual April, the
county would gain 470
jobs. But the county lost
4,820 jobs amid wide-
spread restrictions on
business meant to stem
the spread of the virus.
Leisure and hospi-
tality cut 2,790 jobs in
April, including 990 in
accommodations
and
ple in need … and we need
to help people as quickly as
possible.”
Rep. Shelly Boshart
Davis, R-Albany, protested
the lack of time for direct
questioning of the offi cials in
a statement she issued after
Wednesday’s meeting. She
said she has heard from many
who have been unable to get
through to someone at the
agency.
“The horror stories are
endless and have been well
documented by the press,”
she said. “I am incredibly
frustrated that lawmakers
were not given an opportu-
nity to ask questions of the
department’s leadership.”
In her opening statement
Wednesday, Erickson offered
1,690 in restaurants and
bars. Retail trade lost 320
jobs; and education and
health care 260. Other
services, including hair
salons, repair shops and
churches, lost another
220 jobs. Professional
and business services,
including temp agencies,
cut 170 jobs; construc-
tion 130; and manufac-
turing 120. Local gov-
ernment education shed
120 jobs.
The county, more
dependent on tourism
and hospitality, went
from having one of the
10 lowest unemploy-
ment rates in the state
to the second-highest
after 26.2% in Lincoln
County, another tourism
hotspot.
Clatsop
County’s
unemployment peaked at
11.9% during the Great
Recession. The statewide
unemployment rate in
April was 14.8%, and the
national rate was 14.4%.
May’s fi gures will be
available in late June.
a public apology.
“We have done a lot. We
have accomplished a lot. And
yet there is still much more to
do,” she said.
“To our customers, I know
in these uncertain times, wait-
ing for confi rmation of your
unemployment benefi ts can
be agonizing. For the thou-
sands of Oregonians who
are still waiting, I do apolo-
gize. In the coming weeks,
we will be doubling down on
our efforts to get to a better
place.”
On Tuesday, Erickson
announced a new effort, Proj-
ect Focus 100, to process the
remaining 38,039 claims of
more than 400,000 that have
been fi led since March 15.
The agency has processed
about 90% of the total, though
some people still await ben-
efi ts because of unresolved
issues. The agency goal is to
process 90% of new claims
within three weeks of fi ling.
She said some of the most
experienced claims proces-
sors — the total staff has
jumped from 100 to 700
in recent weeks — will be
assigned to resolve what
are often the most complex
claims.
During the Great Reces-
sion a decade ago, Oregon
lost 147,000 jobs at its low
point, which took a year to
reach.
“We are doubling down
on the people who have been
waiting the longest to get
them benefi ts quickly,” Ger-
stenfeld said. “But it is not
possible to do all of the work
at once.”
The new effort takes in
two other programs passed
by Congress in the CARES
Act, which was signed March
27.
The Employment Depart-
ment is one month into pro-
cessing claims from a newly
eligible group of workers —
self-employed people, inde-
pendent contractors, part-
time and gig workers — but
also required states to deter-
mine whether they qualify for
regular benefi ts. So far about
50,000 people have applied.
They qualify for a minimum
benefi t of $205 per week, for
up to 39 weeks, and some
may eventually get more.
The department started
May 21 to process claims for
13 weeks of extended pay-
ments to people who have
already exhausted their stan-
dard 26 weeks of benefi ts.
“These programs added
layers of complexity,” Erick-
son said. “We were asking
people who worked for us for
just weeks to quickly navi-
gate those systems using our
current technology.” Under a
third program, all recipients
will get $600 per week on top
of their unemployment ben-
efi ts through July 31. There
are no extra requirements for
people to qualify.
recovers $300M in
unemployment scam
By RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press
OLYMPIA, Wash. —
Washington has recovered
$300 million paid to crim-
inals who used stolen per-
sonal information to fi le
fraudulent unemployment
benefi t claims amid the
COVID-19 crisis, state offi -
cials said Thursday.
Employment Security
Department Commissioner
Suzi LeVine said that she
could not yet reveal the pre-
cise amount that was paid in
fraudulent claims, but said
that the initial recovery —
including $50 million set
to be returned Thursday —
was a result of the state’s
collaboration with federal
law enforcement and fi nan-
cial institutions across the
country.
“This is a national attack
by sophisticated criminals
and isn’t just happening to
Washington state,” LeVine
said.
LeVine fi rst detailed the
scope of the fraud last week,
saying that the information
of tens of thousands of peo-
ple in the state was used to
fraudulently pay hundreds
of millions of dollars in
unemployment benefi ts.
Much of it apparently
went to a West African fraud
ring using identities sto-
len in prior data breaches,
such as the massive 2017
Equifax breach. Washing-
ton is one of several states
where attacks have been
detected, including New
Mexico, Michigan and
Montana, according to Cal-
ifornia cyber security fi rm
Agari, which has monitored
the Nigerian fraud group,
dubbed Scattered Canary.
The fraudsters had
money sent to prepaid
debit cards associated with
bank accounts, from which
they have it transferred
internationally or quickly
exchanged for bitcoin or gift
cards, according to Patrick
Peterson, chief executive of
Agari.
LeVine said that the state
is recovering additional
money from some of the
victims of the identity theft
who contacted offi cials after
they received debit cards
with unemployment ben-
efi ts they didn’t apply for
because the the impostor
forgot to change the address
on the account.
The state saw a sig-
nifi cant decrease in ini-
tial claims for unemploy-
ment benefi ts last week,
something LeVine said is
likely due to the extra anti-
fraud efforts taken in recent
weeks, including delay-
ing payments by up to two
days in order to further ver-
ify claims.
Nearly 1.5 million
claims for benefi ts — with
some of that number refl ect-
ing people who fi led multi-
ple claims — were fi led for
the week of May 17 through
May 23, and more than
$494.5 million was paid last
week to 424,995 individual
claims.
To date, the state has paid
nearly $4.7 billion in bene-
fi ts to more than 807,000
people, including federal
money that is providing the
unemployed with an addi-
tional $600 a week on top
of the state’s weekly maxi-
mum benefi t of up to $790
per week.
Of the more than
323,000 still awaiting pay-
ment, LeVine said that a
majority of them are cases
where someone has fi led an
initial application but not a
weekly claim, or those who
haven’t applied since the
federal program made them
eligible. About 44,000 peo-
ple are currently in adju-
dication, as one or more
issues with their application
is being investigated.
Dick & Sharon Seppa
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