Miscellaneous
When Allison Roberts lost her job at the Jewish Community Center on March 16, she tried applying for unemployment benefits, but she couldn't get through by phone or online. After weeks of this, the human resources representative from the JCC started helping her with some assistance from the office of a local member of Congress "Finally," she explained, "I got something saying, 'You're approved,' even though I never answered any questions. 'There's a debit card coming for you in three weeks.' I got the debit card in a couple of days, which I was like, 'Oh my gosh, that's awesome!' " But every time Roberts tried to activate the debit card, she heard a recorded message that said there was a delay in the funding of some accounts and to check back later. About a week later, the call finally went through and she was able to access her unemployment payments almost two months after her first attempt to claim them. By then, the New York state labor department was reporting a blacklog of 7,580