The New York State Department of Labor announced Wednesday that the backlog of pending unemployment benefit applications has been reduced to 7,580 — representing major progress since an unprecedented crush of applications related to the COVID-19 pandemic flooded the DOL's systems in March. This universe of unprocessed applications includes those that are missing critical information and cannot be processed, duplicates, and abandoned claims. Additionally, since the passage of the Federal CARES Act, 562,766 PUA applicants have received unemployment benefits. In total, more than 2 million unemployment benefit applications have been processed, and those New Yorkers have received over $10 billion in benefits.
"No one could have predicted the wave of unemployment applications that crashed over the United States because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and every state is struggling — but New York has moved faster than any other state to address our backlog and get money into New Yorkers' hands. To date, we have paid out over $10 billion dollars during this crisis, compared to just $2.1 billion in total last year," NYS Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon said. "Those claims that have been outstanding for weeks are ones that we simply cannot process — we have already attempted to contact all of these New Yorkers, and we will continue to try get in touch with everyone who applied so we can connect them with the benefits they are eligible for."