ATLANTA – A group of Georgia House Democrats called on state Commissioner of Labor Mark Butler Friday to open a call center to help process unemployment claims.
Members of the House Democratic Caucus Subcommittee on COVID-19 said they have received complaints from jobless Georgians of long wait times to receive benefits or resolve appeals.
“The holidays are upon us,” said Rep. Sandra Scott, D-Rex. “We need for our constituents and the citizens of Georgia to receive their unemployment benefits.”
Reacting to the surge of Georgians thrown out of work during the coronavirus pandemic, the labor department launched a pilot project last month allowing claimants to schedule an online appointment with an agency representative to ask questions about their claim.
But Scott said the two-hour window the program sets aside for representatives to call claimants to schedule an appointment is inadequate.
“This is not a call center. It’s an appointment scheduler,” she said. “Open up a real call center.”
Butler said the labor department is working on opening a call center soon in Dalton, with two more expected to follow during the first quarter of next year.
Members of the subcommittee said they also are getting complaints from constituents who have not received unemployment benefits despite getting a notice that their claim is valid.
In other cases, payments are made for one to three weeks and suddenly stop without notice or explanation.
Some whose claims are denied are waiting three to four months for a hearing,
“The lack of communications from the Georgia Department of Labor is unacceptable,” Scott said. “[The agency] must find a way to help people get paid.”
The subcommittee is also asking Butler to hire and train additional staff to investigate and resolve claims and issue a report evaluating the timeliness of benefits payments.
Butler said the agency is adding 20 appeals hearing officers, 15 claims examiners, and 10 additional fraud investigators. Another 50 were added last month to assist with fact finding for eligibility reviews, he said.
Also, the department is working with Georgia State University to offer students part-time positions helping to process appeals, the commissioner said.
From mid-March through the end of last week, the labor department paid out more than $16 billion in unemployment benefits to almost 4.1 million Georgia claimants, more than the last nine years combined.