Nearly 1 in 5 Long Islanders have lost jobs, filings show

Another 26,585 Long Islanders filed for unemployment benefits last week, marking the lowest number of claims filed in the region since they hit a peak of over 59,000  the second week in April. 

While the numbers for the week ended May 2 show the pace of new claims has slowed since the coronavirus crisis began, the volume of residents seeking jobless benefits is still at historic highs, up 363% from the 5,747 claims made during the same week last year.

Since the crisis began, 259,590 Long Islanders – nearly one in five of all workers locally – have filed for unemployment benefits. More than 1.8 million New Yorkers have filed jobless claims during the same period.

As of Wednesday, the state Department of Labor has paid out $5.8 billion in benefits to 1.5 million jobless New Yorkers, labor commisioner Roberta Reardon said during a press briefing Wednesday.

She said she could not provide  any figures regarding claims backlogs, saying the number of incomplete claims changes from hour to hour. The backlog, which Reardon called “a floating number,” includes duplicate filings and applications from individuals who have already gone back on their employers' payrolls, she said.  It also includes long-delayed claims for Pandemic Unemployment Insurance, which extends unemployment benefits to gig workers, contractors and the self employed, she said. 

“These are all reasons the number of pending [applications] really is complicated,” Reardon said. “Every day we are processing more and more applications.”

Since the start of the crisis, New York, like other states across the country, has been inundated with demand for jobless aid, an influx that initially led to frequent unemployment website crashes and flooded phone lines. Early last month, the agency rolled out a series of changes, including an updated online application process, increased call center personnel, and the change to a "don't call us, we'll call you" process meant to limit the influx of calls. 

Despite the changes, many Islanders and state residents say they have waited nearly two months for their claims to be processed, haven’t received promised phone calls from the DOL or have had a pending status on their claims for weeks.

While the agency did not provide data on the backlog, Reardon said that more than 470,000 New Yorkers with processed and payable claims are missing out on a total of $480 million in aid because they did not certify their unemployment status for one week or more.

Once a week, recipients of jobless benefits must certify that they are still unemployed, that they are ready, willing and able to work, and must list any days that they did work.

To deal with the missing certifications, DOL said it is launching an online process for submitting previous weeks’ certifications. Under the previous process, applicants had to call a DOL representative in order to certify previous weeks they missed.

With the new system, claimants who need to certify prior weeks will be able to fill out an online form that will be emailed out next week to New Yorkers who failed to certify for one or more weeks.