PHOENIX — Arizona has been plagued by the coronavirus pandemic for nine months with no end in sight.
More than 221,000 people in the state have caught the virus and another 5,700-plus have died from it as of Monday.
As the state continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, Arizonans are busy fighting the state’s Department of Economic Security for their unemployment payments.
Patricia Cotton, a 61-year-old woman from Phoenix, said her unemployment claim was flagged as fraudulent weeks ago because more than five people were using her address.
Why? She has lived at an Extended Stay America since early June.
“I have sent all the documents requested and it still has not been fixed,” Cotton said in an email.
Cotton said she is owed more than $3,600 as of Sept. 10.
“I have been without any funds for the whole seven weeks,” she said.
Cotton said she was able to get some help through the city of Phoenix’s Family Services Center, which paid $1,200 of her rent.
Even with the one-time help, she said her rent is back up over $1,000. She said the last time she spoke with someone at the department, she was told it was in the last step of the process and that she would get her money soon.
“I'm 61 and very close to being homeless,” Cotton said. “This is not acceptable.”
Some Arizonans said they are missing upwards of $10,000 of unemployment payments due to the issues at the Department of Economic Security.
Melanie, a Glendale woman who did not want to use her last name, said she has been eligible for unemployment payments dating back to February, but did not apply until the beginning of July, when she had to figure out how to pay her bills.
She said in an email that she received four payments in July, with the remaining 27 weeks still left unpaid. That amounted to more than $10,000 in unpaid unemployment payments, Melanie said.
Melanie said that, according to the department’s unemployment insurance website, “there are no issues with my claim. There is no outstanding paperwork. The payments continue to show ‘in progress.’”
After calling the department at least a dozen times every single day for five weeks, emailing and reaching out to the UI Client Advocate, Melanie said she was finally able to get through to a person at the department on Sept. 11.
She said she was told that her case was under review because the back pay is so high and that an email would be sent to the department handling the large deposits.
Melanie said she was told she would hear from someone within 72 hours – and nothing. She said she was given no explanation for why the payments started and stopped and that there are still no issues listed online with her account.
“Arizona citizens continue to hear (Gov. Doug) Ducey speak of how citizens are taken care of here, everyone be safe, etc., etc., etc. When will he fix this huge problem?”
Melanie’s problems with Arizona’s unemployment system have also bled into her family: She said her husband and their adult daughter are each owed more than $10,000 too.
“There are so many people in the same situation. It’s sad,” she said.
Veronica Gardner said the department is holding onto approximately $10,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, or PUA, between her and her fiancé.
Brett Bezio, a spokesman with the Arizona Department of Economic Security, has told 12 News that he could not provide any specific case information.
A dashboard from the department said that as of Sept. 26, 401,136 Arizonans have received unemployment benefits and 1,201,547 Arizonans have received Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, or PUA.
Some Arizonans, like Jeff Carr, said they have run into issues with adjudicators at the department.
Adjudicators, according to the department’s website, complete a fact-gathering process that involves interviewing the person who filed the unemployment claim and possibly an employer in order to resolve certain issues with their account.
Carr said in an email that he has not received any unemployment checks since July after he said he messed up on a question.
Carr said he made the error on July 25 and the department fixed it on Sept. 15, but he said the decision still needs to be reviewed by an adjudicator.
Nicole Abarca said she made her claim on May 24 but misunderstood and made an incorrect answer on one of the questions about telework availability.
As a result, she said she has not received a single payment. Abarca said she has been told about four or five times that her account was cleared and approved by an adjudicator after going through an approval process and that she would receive her payment soon.
However, Abarca said she was told more recently that her account is waiting to be reviewed by an adjudicator again due to an “active issue.” She said she has sent a “plethora” of pictures and documents in hopes of receiving her unemployment money but feels like she is in an endless cycle.
“I feel like I’m slipping through the cracks and won’t see a dime of this money,” she said in an email, adding that the situation is eating away at her and the stress is starting to affect her health.
“We have seriously been eating every other day at times. PLEASE HELP I don’t know where to turn.”
