Senators Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, and Melissa Hurtado, representing the 14th Senate District, announced they have submitted a request to Governor Newsom urging him to issue an Executive Order to keep EDD phone lines and operations open and fully staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until the delay in claims processing is addressed, officials said Thursday.

“When our constituents can’t feed their families or keep roofs over their heads because EDD has failed to process month’s old unemployment claims, it is not a political issue – it is a crisis,” said Wilk. “California is in a crisis and without drastic actions the situation at EDD will only continue to deteriorate; especially if the state continues on the trajectory of opening and closing businesses in response to the pandemic. If EDD doesn’t clear this up quickly people will end up out of their homes and in the streets.”

Wilk also requested an audit of the unemployment agency to clarify what is causing the “inexcusable delays” in distributing unemployment benefits to people who, in some cases, applied months ago, according to his office. 

See Related: Senator Scott Wilk Calls For Audit Of California EDD Unemployment Agency 

Back in April, Wilk and Senate Republicans submitted another letter to Governor Gavin Newsom requesting immediate steps be taken to drastically improve EDD’s claim time. By all reports, the situation has actually gotten worse.  The agency is months behind processing claims, according to the Senator’s office. 

“The COVID pandemic has created unprecedented unemployment throughout the state. While the statewide average sits around 15 percent, parts of the southern central valley is upward of 24%,” said Hurtado. “To address this extraordinary time in the pandemic we have no choice but to provide unfettered access to help process claims.”

EDD’s long history of technology problems has been exacerbated by the surge of Californians applying for unemployment during the pandemic resulting in a backlog of claims, unanswered phone lines, glitches in the claims process and other problems. As an emergency workaround to the failed IT systems at EDD, Senators Hurtado and Wilk have requested that the governor issue an Executive Order to keep EDD operational at all times until the backlog is addressed.

See the full letter here.

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