U.S. Representative Susie Lee and a DETR Administrator Kimberly Gaa held a Facebook Live to provide answers for unemployed people still waiting for their benefits. Gaa said there are 578,000 unemployment claims right now with 23,000 of them are still awaiting a final decision.

For Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, there could be relief coming in the next 10 to 15 days. "We're waiting for some technological functionality in our system in order to provide decisions out to claimants," said Gaa.

But for Cynthia Rumbaugh who is waiting on her regular claim, that's not much help. She's been waiting eight weeks. "You're just sitting their helplessly. You're in limbo. They are not responding to you," said Rumbaugh. "The full adjudication process for traditional unemployment is taking about six weeks to eight weeks depending on the complexity of the claim," said Gaa.

Rumbaugh is a social worker. "I was working 32 hours per week then COVID hit. The work census numbers went down," said Rumbaugh.

When completing the online form, she filled out one question wrong. Now she's having trouble getting them to fix it or even establishing contact with them. "We're asking people to try to avoid calling on Mondays. Mondays are the heaviest days. We are also open Saturday mornings until noon," said Gaa.

Rumbaugh says she waited until after she received her last paycheck to file. This may have been a mistake. "Don't report when you get paid a month later. Report it in the week you worked it. Then it will be accurate and we can move it faster," said Gaa. "You know my eight weeks is up. I hope I hear from them," said Rumbaugh.

Gaa says one of the issues DETR has been dealing with, is some of their callbacks are being blocked. Check with your phone providers to make sure these numbers can get through:

702-486-0350

775-684-0350

775-687-7101

702-486-0185

702-486-3387

The Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation says that its still working to fix an issue with its system.

As we told you earlier this week that issue is causing a delay in this week's unemployment claims.

On Wednesday, DETR announced that it currently has 23,000 pending unemployment claims and that there could be relief for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance money within the next two weeks.

DETR says one of the issues it's been dealing with is some of their callbacks are being blocked.

So check with your phone providers to make sure those numbers can get through.

DETR says standard claims are taking anywhere from six to eight weeks to get through - depending on the complexity of the claim.

They add that PUA delays are even longer with tens of thousands of people awaiting decisions.

In a statement, DETR says, "We continue to work in attending the system issue and monitoring our site while addressing the claims impacted by the recently announced system error. Claims will be updated in groups resulting in payments being issued next week. Claimants are not required to take any action."

 

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