Thousands of Kansans Suffering Due To Serious Issues Within the Kansas Department of Labor
Unless you have found yourself on unemployment in the state of Kansas, you have not heard these stories. They are not being told. Not by the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL), and not by the media.
But these people need to be heard. Someone needs to understand the utter despair that people are feeling because the unemployment system is so broken.
“I honestly have never felt so hopeless in my life. I’ve never felt so stressed and worried. Idk how I’m going to buy diapers, wipes, etc. when I run out in a few days. Idk how I’m going to get an hour to town to get food for my kids because I have NO money for gas… I just want to crawl in a hole and never come out. KDOL has ruined my life and hurt my children with their incompetence.”
“idk how much strength I have to keep fighting this fight. I just wanna pay my bills. I give up man. KDOL won.”
“Had to get help to pay my gas and lights. Today went to the food pantry and got commodities as well. It’s getting desperate here. Need to start selling stuff just to get money for food.”
These are real comments from people currently on unemployment through the State of Kansas, and unless you or someone you know is one of the many stuck in this system, you probably know nothing about it.
I certainly didn’t, until I found myself in the same situation. I lost my job last November, and suddenly, after the “system upgrade” in early February, I stopped receiving benefits.
Like many, I went looking for answers, but there was very little information being distributed. There was nothing on the KDOL website as to why payments weren’t being processed, and no answers to the hundreds of questions being posted on the KDOL Facebook page.
I went to Google looking for media stories about what was happening and why payments weren’t being processed. The only information being released was a press release from KDOL stating that the system was being upgraded and would be down for a few days.
Well, those few days had come and gone and it appeared the mess had only gotten worse. However, no additional information or further updates were being provided.
Kansas Unemployment Discussions Facebook Group
That eventually led me, and many like me, to the Kansas Unemployment Discussions Facebook group. Here my eyes were opened to the struggles many had been facing. Months were going by without seeing any of the money they were owed, people were losing everything, and children were going hungry. It was nuts!
And why? Because the system is broken. But what’s worse, is that communication from KDOL is practically non-existent, and what little is provided is inconsistent and more often than not, conflicting.
“I’ve spoken to 2 different agents through chat today. 1st told me all was caught up and good to go. 2nd told me I was inactive and have to call. Robert told me I was confused and that I’d talked to him on 2/2 which never happened at all.”
These are the frustrations felt when someone actually gets through to a real live person — which is rare. Most end up calling hundreds of times per day for weeks on end.
“It took me weeks of calling more than 100 times a day to get through on the phone…”
The problem is that so many of the issues can only be resolved by speaking to a claim specialist and it is nearly impossible to reach them. Or maybe claimants don’t need to talk to a representative and just need to wait, but nobody knows which is the case because there is not a consistent message coming from KDOL.
The Kansas Legislators
Luckily, there is one group that is trying desperately to get people taken care of, and that is the men and women of the Kansas Legislature. Many claimants have taken to contacting their representatives who answer their cries with compassion and a real willingness to help. Unfortunately, the representatives are also getting the run-around (or no response at all) from the people at KDOL.
Charlotte Wagner has been desperate to find answers and get help and has enlisted the help of any elected official in the state of Kansas that would listen. Most were empathetic but admitted there wasn’t much they could do because of “roadblocks” that they were unable to break through.
Charlotte told me, “All of this has pretty much broken me. I am 60 years old, have survived a near-fatal car wreck, a subsequent opioid addiction, a violent ex-husband and it is the state of Kansas that broke me.”
Some of the biggest issues are associated with the claims for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program — the federal extension of benefits of up to 13 weeks for those who had exhausted state unemployment benefits, or the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), another federally funded program that provides financial assistance to self-employed or “gig” workers who do not typically qualify for state-funded unemployment benefits.
Jennifer Johnson’s husband has been unable to work since the COVID pandemic hit because of an illness that makes him particularly susceptible to the virus. The Johnson’s have found themselves in a seemingly endless cycle of conflicting information, and have been waiting for months for their eligibility documentation to be processed.
Jennifer told me, “We have only been able to reach a rep of KDOL two times. Once being told everything was fine and to keep filing.” Unfortunately, like many, they were unable to access the system in order to file the claims due to a glitch in the system.
Once Jennifer and her husband were finally able to access the system, they discovered they had been locked out of their account, requiring them to file the claims via phone.
“We called every single number given and have received nothing to access the system in any way. No email. No phone call. No letter. Nothing.
We called again around the 17th or 18th of February only to be told by an ‘account specialist’ that we were filing wrong and must file for PEUC. Said we would receive an email to unlock our account because she had done it personally. We did not. She also told us that she wouldn’t file the weekly claim for us, and if we wanted all that money we would [need to] call in on the following Friday, 2/19, and get it straightened out.
We have since attempted almost 1,000 times a day, from 4 different phones, from 8 am to 4 pm with NO success.”
Kansas’ Enormous Problem with Fraud
Others are facing issues because their claims have been flagged a fraudulent. According to a news report from Fox4 KC, The Kansas Department of Labor has sent 50,000 fraud cases to investigators and stopped payment on an additional 500,000 cases.
Working through these cases of suspected fraud is slow going, and the system for dealing with it is again, broken. Many have submitted documentation dozens of times to prove their claims are legitimate, only to be told that KDOL does not have the documents and they’ll have to submit again.
According to Sheila Todd Wagner, one of her two sons that are currently on state-funded unemployment hasn’t received benefits since November. She said, “he had to email identity verification, which they didn’t see, which caused him to get suspended or something. He faxed his information like 4 times, finally got a letter last week saying he was all verified, but still no money.”
Many who have been locked out of the system have now discovered that because they haven’t filed a claim for so long, their account is now inactive.
That’s what happened to Sheila’s other son. She said that “now his account says inactive/no claims to file.”
Of course, both of Sheila’s sons are concerned because as she said, “if you can’t pay your bills it’s bad for everyone.”
Unfortunately, the story gets worse. For me, the gravity of the state of affairs really hit me when I saw this post on the Kansas Unemployment Discussions Facebook group on February 18th.
At this point, I don’t know what can be done to help the thousands of people that are suffering because of the broken system in place at the Kansas Department of Labor, and their lack of communication with the people in their care. What I do know is that these stories need to be told and that the citizens of the state of Kansas must be aware of what their friends and neighbors are suffering through.
