I am ashamed to live in California

[ripcord]

https://abc7news.com/edd-benefits-cut-california-unemployment-coronavirus-pandemic/8018764/

As we've reported, the EDD has shut down 350,000 unemployment claims, trying to weed out fraud. However, it's inadvertently cut benefits to legitimate workers all over the state.

They say their only source of income has been locked up for months and many had nowhere to turn except 7 On Your Side.

The EDD says it's blocking suspicious accounts; mostly those with multiple claims at one house. But workers say they've proven they're legitimate, and still EDD won't release their money. Now it's separated one mom from her kids.

Roxzan Macon provided in-home care to the elderly until the pandemic hit, all but ending home visits. Thankfully, unemployment benefits kept her going.

Until now.

"I was getting groceries for myself and my kids," Macon said. "We were in Walmart and the transaction was declined. And it said the account was closed."

Her EDD account still had $9,000 in it. But when she tried to use it, she saw this ominous message: "Your account cannot be accessed."

"I had a yard sale," Macon said. "I had to sell clothing and stuff just to buy food and stuff."

It wasn't enough.

Macon said, "How can you tell the kids, 'No, you can't have anything to eat. No, we don't have enough noodles. We don't have any noodles.' How much are noodles? Get noodles, a pack of noodles for 30 cents right now. That's heartbreaking for a parent as an adult to tell a child that they can't have anything to eat. It's very sad."

If only the EDD would unlock her account.

"They yell at you for calling every day, 'Well we got your notes, you called earlier, just have to give us time,'" Macon said.

"It's gonna be three months," she continued. "It's gonna be the first of the year. 'Just give us time to do our job.' Do your job? Really?"

"Makes you feel less than human. Make you feel like trash," Macon said.

She sent her children to live with their aunt. "You don't know how many days and nights I've cried. Absolutely, I'm missing my children. I couldn't properly take care of them."

I can't believe how we are failing these people who are in desperate need, we are the 5th largest economy in the world but this is what happens to people who have nothing. What progressive and compassionate government would cut people off from funding en mass without firm proof of wrongdoing? The fact that this parent can't support her kids because the state unemployment failed and had to send them away is disgusting and something I would expect from a deep red state.

[mr_lebowski]

1. If it makes you feel any better I'm sure if it's happening in CA it's happening in red states too nt

[ripcord]

10. Why would that make me feel better?

[mr_lebowski]

13. I did say 'if' ...

And you said your ashamed of CA in particular, so I thought maybe you felt like many other states are also ... ah, nevermind.

[Laelth]

2. It's worse in TX.

Here, it’s nigh impossible to speak to anyone on the phone. You just get completely ignored.

-Laelth

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. California is not the progressive dreamland a lot of people like to pretend it is.

But no matter how a state votes in a presidential election, keeping people from their benefits is unconscionable.

[SophieJean]

8. It may not be a "progressive dreamland,"

but I will take it over any red state, particularly after having been exiled in the state of Ohio for ten years in the 1990's, due to my husband's job at Procter and Gamble, and his family commitments. I was involved with the Democratic party there at the time, as well as NOW, but sadly there wasn't a lot of interest.
Once we finally moved back to CA I swore I would never leave again. Yes, there are problems here, but it's still mainly progressive and most importantly, accepting of diversity.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Because of Covid and

a lack of Funding by our State Legislature,we experienced the same thing. Understand Nevada is finally getting it's arms around the Fraud Claims by putting a hard nosed Lady in charge of the department who demanded results. There will be hundreds prosecuted as a result.

[SophieJean]

5. This is inexcusable,

and a complete clusterfuck, obviously. There are several other articles about this issue including one concerning an emergency audit of the EDD by CA lawmakers in September. Newsom created a task force to address the "EDD backlog," which was overwhelmed by the increase in unemployment requests, but that was on July 29. While many states have been having problems with unemployment claims, cutting people off from their benefits during a pandemic is pathetic, regardless of the incidence of fraudulent claims. There at least seems to be a significant amount of outrage, including from some CA lawmakers, so hopefully it will be resolved sooner than later.

There was a small bit of good news for Roxzan Macon from the 7 On Your Side posted article: "After much back and forth, we got EDD to at least send future payments to her via check - that $9,000 is still locked up."

[BSdetect]

6. Bureaucracy can be far more humane. Protect the kids damn it.

[jimfields33]

7. 9,000 dollars in the account and they shut it down?

[stopbush]

9. I live in CA and have been on UI since March. I have had my battles with the EDD,

notably after someone in their office coded my account as having a workweek that ran Sat- Fri, rather than Sun-Sat. That caused the system to deny my benefits for around 6 weeks as it said I “ hadn’t provided info for a full work week (ie: Sun-Sat).”

It took me the better part of two months to get that fixed, even though every EDD agent I spoke with immediately saw the problem. Their problem was that they were all low-level functionaries, people hired to work from home as the “first line of defense” in fielding calls from the public. They could not access the area of the system to fix the problem. All they could do was fill out a report and send it up the chain of command.

Eventually, it was worked out and I got my benefits retroactively. But it took constant phone calls, being put in a queue that lasted about 30 minutes before I got to speak with a human.

[trackfan]

11. I've had pretty good luck with the EDD.

I just re-opened a claim yesterday, and it took about 5 minutes on line.

[MyNameIsKhan]

12. EDD deposits money in Bank of America account and once deposited EDD cannot lock it

It looks like EDD locked UI online account where claims are filed biweekly.

[ripcord]

14. She had $9000 in her EDD BoA account and it was blocked

She is no longer allowed to access that money and now she does without because they decided to block everyone that ticked a certain box on their software, innocent and guilty alike.

[a kennedy]

15. Well fawk the Senate turtle leader....all he's doing is passing judges.