Marcia Gassaway was in the first wave of Ohioans put out of work by COVID-19.

The single mom from Cleveland went to the emergency room on March 15. Due to her coronavirus-like symptoms, doctors ordered that she be quarantined at a special facility.

Now, she鈥檚 recovering at home with her children, calling the unemployment help line over and over again.

鈥淚 call every day, every day,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 trying to recover with my health. It鈥檚 so scary...I cry at night because I don鈥檛 know what to do.鈥�

Each time she dials the number, she hears an automated message that the system is experiencing a high call volume. Then it hangs up.

Until she got sick, Gassaway worked at the Amazon fulfillment center in Euclid. She hasn鈥檛 been laid off, but she doesn鈥檛 have paid sick leave, and her doctors haven鈥檛 given her clearance yet to return to work, where she might risk infecting coworkers.

When DeWine shut down all Ohio bars and restaurants in mid-March, he expanded unemployment eligibility to cover people just like Gassaway so they could stay home instead of spreading the virus.

Gassaway has been without any income for five weeks, and she doesn鈥檛 know why her claim hasn鈥檛 been paid. She got through to an operator once, who told her to upload a note from her doctor. She did. That was weeks ago, and she said her claim is still listed as 鈥減ending.鈥�

ODJFS knows the system is having problems due to the explosion in applicants since Gov. Mike DeWine ordered all bars and restaurants to close. 

Between March 15 and April 11, the number of unemployment insurance claims exceeded all claims filed in the previous two years.

On April 14, at his daily press conference, DeWine fielded a question about people who have been waiting weeks for their first unemployment payment.

鈥淚t's very upsetting to me,鈥� he said, 鈥渁nd we can go through all the reasons why that is happening. But the bottom line for those of you who are not getting your check or have not been getting into the system, I don't think you want to hear anything. I think you want us to fix it."

ODJFS has been scrambling to expand its capacity to handle claims, and to set up new systems for each new kind of benefit added on the federal and state level. That includes the extra $600 per week benefit under the CARES Act, extended benefits for people receiving unemployment, and new eligibility for self-employed workers or those who didn鈥檛 make enough to typically qualify.

So far, though, the traffic is all funnelled through the existing Ohio Job Insurance system, which was built in 2004.

The state already had plans to update OJI, and hired a company called Sagitec Solutions in January 2019 to build a new system. But the process was expected to take two years. It wasn鈥檛 anywhere near ready to take over when the pandemic鈥檚 unemployment wave hit the department鈥檚 16-year-old system.

According to ODJFS numbers released April 16, 855,197 people applied for unemployment between March 15 and April 11. Over the same time period, the department paid claims out to 271,000 people 鈥� about 32%. 

Other states have been hamstrung because their systems are written in COBOL, an antiquated programming language that went out of vogue in the 1980s. ODJFS spokesman Bret Crow said the OJI system is based on a combination of COBOL and Java, a much more commonly used language.

鈥淲e are not in the position of other states that need to beat the bushes to find folks who know COBOL,鈥� Crow said in an email. 鈥淲hile we have experienced slow processing times because our system is overloaded with claims just like every other state鈥檚 online claims system, programmers have not been an issue for Ohio.鈥�

The department has been on a hiring spree for people to answer the phones. Before the lockdown, there were 42 unemployment phone operators, Lt. Gov. John Husted said at a press conference on April 15. Now they have about 1,194, all working remotely. Another 337 can join the team once they complete training.

Husted said next week they will also add voice recognition systems to answer frequently asked questions, and a 鈥渧irtual call center鈥� system is being set up. Crow said the virtual call center would be cloud-based, making it easier to add more staff.

As of April 12, Crow said the average time callers were spending on hold was about 26 minutes.

The average hold time doesn鈥檛 reflect the number of people who were simply disconnected. Crow said he didn鈥檛 have any data on how often that was happening.

One Facebook page for restaurant workers affected by the pandemic has more than 27,000 members. Every day, members post questions about messages in the unemployment insurance application portal they can鈥檛 open, and cryptic notifications like 鈥淏reak in Claim鈥� or 鈥淧ending: $0.00.鈥� They also trade tips for getting through to an operator at ODJFS, like selecting the option to speak to someone in Spanish, since the operators are bilingual and call volume seems to be lower.

When an Eye On Ohio journalist wrote a post asking how many people had been disconnected while calling ODJFS, it drew more than 270 responses. Dozens upon dozens of people said they鈥檇 been disconnected repeatedly.

One member, Jessica Zalants, sent screenshots of her phone logs, which showed more than 150 calls to the state unemployment insurance help line over three days. She said it didn鈥檛 reflect the additional calls that her husband, a furloughed engineer, had made on his own phone.

Zalants and her husband, who have a nine-month-old baby together, are having a house built outside Cincinnati. Their financial advisor recommended they wait to secure a loan so they could get a better interest rate. Now she鈥檚 worried they won鈥檛 be able to get a mortgage or make a down payment.

Calling the unemployment line is the first thing she does when she gets up in the morning, she said. When she and her husband went out for a bike ride recently, she kept calling the unemployment line while out on the trail.

鈥淚t literally consumes everything I do,鈥� she said.

Amy Pheneger, who worked at The Standard in Cleveland until the shutdown order, said she鈥檚 spent hours on hold with the unemployment line. But she said that鈥檚 better than no answer at all. She tallied 300 times she鈥檚 called, and counted three where she was able to speak to someone.

鈥淚t鈥檚, like, this relief that comes over me when I hear that hold music,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like, I鈥檓 on hold, thank God.鈥�

The first operator she reached submitted her claim for her, which Pheneger hadn鈥檛 been able to do because the online system was overwhelmed. Another operator she reached told her their computer system was down, and the other hung up on her. 

Her account currently has a 鈥渂reak in claim鈥� notice. Crow said that if claimants see that label, they have to call the unemployment hotline to resolve the problem.

Other group members say they don鈥檛 meet the typical income minimum to receive unemployment because their bosses weren鈥檛 reporting their tips, or didn鈥檛 have them officially on the books as employees. 

Crow said many of those employees will be helped by the rollout of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

鈥淲e decided to go that route to offer better customer service to the new group of folks,鈥� he said, and 鈥渢o save strain on our already overloaded system that is handling hundreds of thousands of initial jobless claims in an unprecedented influx in the history of our state.鈥�

Husted said on Wednesday that the PUA system will be accepting applications by April 25, though payments won鈥檛 start going out until May 15.

That鈥檚 not soon enough for Danyelle Warner, who worked at a bowling alley in Hilliard. She said she hasn鈥檛 been able to get benefits so far because her employer didn鈥檛 report all her wages.

Asked how she鈥檚 making ends meet, she wrote in an email, 鈥淚鈥檓 not at this point. What savings I did have are depleted. I have $0.98 in the bank at this very moment. I am relying on food banks to just keep my family fed.鈥�

鈥淚 know we don鈥檛 save lives. I know we aren鈥檛 鈥榝rontline鈥� employees,鈥� she wrote, but 鈥渢his industry has always been there for us. I鈥檝e often joked that even if the world was ending, I can always fall back on serving and bartending. That there will always be hours to pick up somewhere.

鈥淢arch 16th, our end of the world happened. And there is not much to fall back on for some of us.鈥�

This story comes from the  Cid Standifer is a Cleveland-based freelance journalist.

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