Colorado’s unemployment office says it needs a new system, because over the last 6 months, identity thieves filed up to a third of all new applications for jobless benefits…
(Jobless Who Can’t Get Checks :49)
That’s said to be slowing down checks for real people, who really need that money. Some of the actual unemployed are getting notifications for several weeks in a row, saying there are in the state’s words, “pending issues” as to why they got payments of zero, that actually should be several hundred dollars a week to live on. Some jobless folks tell reporters they’d had those checks coming in, but they suddenly stopped without explanation, and the state claimed they’d have to do a new round of identity verification. But after they did so, the checks never started back up, so some of those jobless haven’t been paid at all, for as long as 9 weeks. The state says it’s suddenly ditched “ID Me,” an identity-verification tool that was used throughout the pandemic, and is now running the state’s own system to make sure people are who they say they are, due to the success hackers are having. Some of the legitimately unemployed say things are so backed up, they’re waiting on thousands in payments, and having trouble coming up with new explanations to give to their young children.