Philadelphia's Unemployment Project, a nonprofit for the unemployed, is asking Governor Tom Wolf to do something about the complete lack of communication between those who have been idled and state unemployment. I know people who lost their jobs and still have no unemployment. For gig workers and the self-employed, a state system rolled out on Saturday crashed repeatedly, and is still weeks away from being able to accept weekly claims. This is inexcusable.
Robert Lucas, a laid off supervisor at a linen company, said “I filed for unemployment on March 16. I haven't received anything at all from unemployment. My bills are overdue, my loans are overdue, I just need some type of help, please. You can’t get through online, or with phone calls. I called a hundred times yesterday and nothing. Please can you help me? Please my time is running out. I have no money at all please help me.”
“We need answers,” said Shannon Darcy, a laid off bartender. “It's unacceptable to have so many people in a state of limbo, and uncertainty during such an uncertain time. People need the phones to be answered. It's been over four weeks. People should have answers by now.”
“We know the state has been overwhelmed with new claims and new guidelines from the recent federal stimulus bill, but people need to know if they can expect help or not. Providing no information is creating great stress for laid off workers. They don’t know if they will get help or not and food and rent is becoming a crisis for many, said Ted Kelly, PUP organizer. “Adding phone lines and recalling laid off staff to answer their phones can let people know where they stand while the state tries to handle the crush.”
Regardless how you feel about the lockdown, Governor Wolf's response to the plight of those he has hurt is completely unacceptable.
If you wish, you can add your name to a letter demanding that he wake uo and start serving the people he represents.
33 comments:
O'Hare you and the other members of thee Dr.Trump nation just can't get on with your lives. You are as obsessed with Wolf as you are Mezzacappa. I hope they open your gym so you and the other butt heads can breath on each other in peace. For now the courthouse remains closed.
So, our inept Gov. Wolf has designed a re-opening plan in stages. Stages his own State Department of Health can control by the way they manage their ‘reported’ case numbers. Something like no more than 50 new cases per 100,000 population. But, check those numbers for accuracy.
Reporting of virus cases/deaths has been proven to be faulty. For example, if one member of a family unit is diagnosed Positive, then every other member of that family are counted as Positive cases. Sounds like an overreaction and exaggeration to me.
Gov. Wolf can easily bounce us out of one phase back into an earlier, more restrictive, phase. Just tweak the numbers!
Our Gov. can run this pressure out through Labor Day, if he chooses. Nice, huh?. All from a guy who can’t manage everyday government operations efficiently during pre-virus times.
4:23, Anyone who follows this blog knows I believe Trump is a terrible President and a terrible person.
But unlike you, I can be pretty bipartisan when it comes to assigning blame for failure.
Taking Wolf to task for his incompetence or uncaring attitude towards the many people he hurt is in no way an endorsement of Trump. This entire crisis has been a comedy of errors, starting with Trump and extending to Wolf.
People can believe that a lockdown is necessary and for our own good and still take Wolf to task for his absolute failure to take care of those he hurt or his lack of transparency in giving some businesses breaks that were not extended to others.
Where do I start about this post?
I wish it were the only example of Wolf's ineptitude but it goes far beyond unemployment. Try calling other state departments and you'll get the same thing - nobody answering because no bodies are there to answer.
We're constantly told the lie that government is the answer to our problems and there to protect us, yet now when we actually need it, they're cut back or shut down!
Wolf's lockdown order was implemented without the reason and criteria used being clearly communicated, and without a plan to re-open. Yesterday, after weeks of the public looking for answers, Wolf finally released a vague plan that gave us more questions than answers.
We're paying a price for Wolf's poor leadership, and the worst part is that the lemmings in his party in the State Legislature are all willing to close ranks behind him. They're more concerned with appearing unified, and will follow his edicts without question. All without a care about the people they supposedly serve.
A family member was laid off on 3/20. Filed immediately. Only received a response yesterday. Still no money. Nobody answers the phone.
I know it's somewhat off-topic, but does anybody know if ANY county in the state currently meets Wolf's criteria for easing restrictions?
Is there a page on the state's website that shows the number of cases per 100,000 residents (by county, by day) since that is the criteria Wolf is using?
I would think that this information is already known by the Governor, since he's the one setting that as a bar.
So these numbers should be made available to the public as well. A web-page showing those statistics seems like basic transparency.
9:36 AM
I try to follow the coronavirus numbers closely, and one of the problems I've encountered is states (not just PA) seem to be investing more in flashy graphical "dashboards" than in actually making trend data available in tabular or graphical form. PA has some fancy "trajectory animations" that seem geared more for the visual crowd than the analytical crowd. The PSU site at least has some graphical trends, but you have to pick out numbers one-by-one if you want to actually calculate trends or plot it yourself.
Total cases by county, again, are available point-by-point on the state map, but I haven't been able to find per capita data.
But if you want what you're asking for, as far as I've been able to figure out, you have to calculate it yourself. The state web site at least has county data in tabular form, but the last I looked, they couldn't be bothered to add a per capita column.
https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Cases.aspx
10:08-
I again caution everyone to understand/accept any chart, graph, animation, whatever, is only as reliable as the data put in to creating it. No longer a doubt in my mind some of the numbers being reported have been ‘enhanced’ to the high side.
Wolf and his acolytes can make their numbers ‘sing’ whatever tune they want.
10:08 -
Those are the same charts that I found.
It would seem to me, that if those are the criteria (cases per 100,000 people per county, over 14 consecutive days) that Wolf is using, that he'd have a simple spreadsheet with rows showing each county, and the columns showing the numbers for each county for each day. That spreadsheet should be posted at the top of the PA website, so that all can see the scorecard. To me, that's Good Government 101.
You should also be able to drill down on those numbers, to see the underlying data that went into them. Again, Good Government 101.
Then we can get into the bigger questions of why he chose certain numbers as the threshold for easing/opening, and how those thresholds compare to what is being used in other states.
Right now we have nothing.
So to tie this all back to the broader point of Bernie's original post, it's another example of Wolf's incompetence or poor communication skills. Either way, it's a failure of leadership for Wolf.
Bernie
Is that self-employed website now properly working?
Thank you.
Now, Wolf is full steam ahead on RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative). No matter that our CO2 emissions have decreased in lockstep with the current 9 RGGI states. Cheap natural gas is putting coal/cogen plants out of business, not govt intervention. Wolf will speed up the demise of these plants to what end? Let's put more people out of work now so they can find a minimum wage job at $12 an hour under Wolfs proposal. I'm sure most small business will be flush with cash in July and will be happy to absorb the cost.
Wolf is completely tone deaf and will ruin this state. All these years later and he still thinks he's in the Peace Corps. We're all going to pay.
Also, the fact that we can't find a spreadsheet on the PA website, and that the 14 day requirement for easing/opening coincides with Wolf's already-stated May 8th date, leads me to believe that Wolf doesn't already have the data.
That's scary.
If he had it, there are likely counties that could already open.
"Is that self-employed website now properly working?"
The site refuses to allow you to file a weekly claim, and states that will not be available for "several" weeks, with no specific date. You are unable to call or chat online with anyone.
I have also filled out unemployment claims for three people who have difficulty with English. Two of those three have not even received a PIN so are unable to make a bi-weekly claim. The third is collecting.
"It would seem to me, that if those are the criteria (cases per 100,000 people per county, over 14 consecutive days) that Wolf is using, that he'd have a simple spreadsheet with rows showing each county, and the columns showing the numbers for each county for each day. That spreadsheet should be posted at the top of the PA website, so that all can see the scorecard. To me, that's Good Government 101."
That data appears on the PSU dashboard if you click on an individual county. It will tell you how many cases per 100,000. But there is no graph showing it day by day.
NorCo reportedly has 548.75 per 100,000
Lehigh has 666.83 per 100,000
Monroe has 611.03 per 100,000
Carbon has 242.45 per 100,000
Bucks has 340.21 per 100,000
Metrics should be made available in exactly the format presented by Wolf, so businesses can plan expected opening dates. Those dates should be rather easily arrived at, for planning purposes. Where is the status of the opening plan? This shouldn't be difficult.
Because the voters of pa. elected the liberal wolf not once but twice we will all pay for it big time
TRUMP 2020
1:10 PM
Thanks Bernie.
Actually, looks like Wolf's plan is based on number of new cases per 100,000 averaged over 14 days, not cases. I guess cases wouldn't make any sense, since by definition, those will never come down.
Perhaps an even more important number is the number of active cases, but since the state doesn't keep track of recoveries, that number's not available.
Maybe they should count presumed recoveries.
Wolfie's criteria for going to "Yellow" (where you might be able to go to church if there aren't more than 24 other people there) is no more than 50 new cases per 100,000 over a 14-day period. For Lehigh and Northampton counties combined, that translates to no more than 280 new cases over a two-week period (about 20 new per day).
Good luck with that. It will take quite a while to drop to that level - especially with ramped-up testing which will increase the number of "positives."
The Lehigh Valley may as well kiss its summer goodbye. No public gatherings of more than 25 (even if we get to "Yellow" by, say August). No public swimming pools. No hoops on the basketball courts. No nets on the tennis courts. But, lots of domestic violence, suicides, and, drug and alcohol abuse.
Self employed are not Wolfe's constituency. His constituency is getting paid in full, and don't have to come to work or answer the phone.
Doc Rock,
I guess we can't count on Midnight Basketball to save our inner cities this year.
Under Wolf's and Dress Guy's "formula" (as if they even know what one is), Lehigh and Northampton won't be open until September. The formula apparently contains secret ingredients because these two clowns aren't tracking shit. This gets worse every day. What a mess our state is in.
Today, the "powers-that-be" shut down the NorCo Coronavirus website to the public. Now, you have to be an employee of NorCo to even get a look at the data.
Coincidence?
Wolf and the good doctor recommended that all Pennsylavanians now wear blindfolds and earplugs to flatten the curve of public outrage over their colossal botching of the entire emergency.
I appreciate what Gov. Wolf's done to address the epidemic. All the gripers need to look in the mirror.
Wolf's plan will keep the lehigh valley down until september just in time for round 2
Still trying to understand the ‘50 new cases’ component. Why was this number selected? Just arbitrary, or something else? I believe this number was selected because it will prove too difficult to compute into an opening after 14 straight days.
Why not use 75, or 100?
Considering the recorded number of virus cases includes ‘Presumed’ cases and sometimes members of the ill patient’s immediate family, the math required to re-open is not without many questions. Not a reliable qualifier.
This whole arrangement looks to me like keeping open an option to ‘move the goal posts’ further away.
"All the gripers need to look in the mirror."
April 23, 2020 at 5:51 PM
I'd rather look at the data.
It is interesting, but unsurprising, how incurious the "We Must Follow Orders!" crowd appears to be.
Anonymous said...
Wolf's plan will keep the lehigh valley down until september just in time for round 2
April 23, 2020 at 5:53 PM
He saved lives.
PA: 37,053 confirmed cases, 1,583 deaths.
You Trumpkins had best find a mask to wear. Or maybe crawl back into your hole.
9:38 pm
Isn't that under Wolf's watch?
I agree with Gov Cuomo. you want to work. Plenty of people hiring to make supplies or work in the frontlines with the sick. Greta pay until your old jobs reopen.. That is of course if you are not just being a political douche bag.
5:23
Headline this morning:
"US Jobless Claims Reach 26 Million"
That's a lot of cashiers and shelving restockers.
Good thing a Republican didn't say that.
And I hear Andrew's the smart one in the family.
You know what? Among those 26 million are furloughed hospital workers. Douchbags all in your world?
God help us if we get any more "compassionate liberals."
Post a Comment