BUFFALO, N.Y. — 2 On Your Side is answering your questions about unemployment benefits.
A lot of questions have come in over the past week. A lot of people just want to know how they can get in touch with someone so they can get help.
Zoran doesn't want to go on-camera for an interview, but he's a school bus driver who is out of work because of the pandemic. He is trying to get his unemployment benefits. He already tried contacting attorneys to help him for free in May, and he says their attempts were unsuccessful. He is also trying to get help from his Assemblymember.
In July, Zoran says he got a call from the NYSDOL to go through his case, and was told he qualified for at least the federal money. He says he was told they would have these payments deposited into his bank account back-dated to March 13 within a week, and that hasn't happened.
Zoran says, "I just wanted to share my story with you regarding the difficulties I have had with the state government and see if there is anything you can do to help."
A spokesperson from the New York State Department of Labor says there are two ways for you to get in touch with the DOL if you're trying to work out your issue.
You can send a message through the two-way communication system after logging in with your ny.gov ID or you can call (888) 209-8124 to speak to a representative. The phone system has been updated, so if you have an older claim, you'll be helped before someone who just filed. The DOL told 2 On Your Side's Kelly Dudzik on Monday that the average wait time is now only about eight minutes.
Adele says she's a little camera shy, so she didn't want to be interviewed, but she says our story last week is the reason she finally got the courage to submit an unemployment application. She works part-time, but since she requested to be removed from her schedule at work when the pandemic hit, she didn't think she'd qualify for unemployment benefits.
Adele was approved, but says, "I answered that my last day of work was 7/28/2020. I will be receiving benefits for the period of time AFTER that date, but there was nowhere on the application to explain that I did not work for three previous months, and only went back to work for 24 days... I didn't know if there was any way I could go back and claim NYS Unemployment benefits for the months that I was off."
2 On Your Side's Kelly Dudzik told Adele to try contacting her Assemblymember and State Senator because they've been helping people a lot. She's going to do that. She also says she's going to contact the NYSDOL directly, but wasn't sure which number to call.
A NYSDOL spokesperson says an average of 8,500 callers were helped on average every day. Now, it's up to 40,000 callers being helped every day.
If you have a question about your unemployment benefits, contact Kelly Dudzik and she will try to get an answer for you.
