Update: A Virginia district court has ordered the Virginia Employment Commission to resolve thousands of backlogged unemployment claims by Labor Day.

The order follows a class-action lawsuit filed in April, which alleges the commission failed to provide relief for residents seeking unemployment insurance and in some cases abruptly cut off benefits without proper notice. By Labor Day, the commission will need to backpay (or inform claimants that they are ineligible for) 95% of the more than 92,000 backlogged cases.

Earlier this month, Gov. Ralph Northam allocated an additional $20 million to VEC to build out staff, make technology upgrades, and modernize the employment insurance system by Oct. 1. He also directed VEC to increase the number of claims it processed weekly from 5,700 currently to 10,000 by June 30 and 20,000 by July 31, two benchmark also mandated in the court’s ruling.

As the commission makes it way through the thousands of cases this summer, it will be required to report its weekly progress, per the court order.

Original:

Several legal groups filed a federal class-action suit on Thursday against the Virginia Employment Commission for its failure to reach residents with unemployment benefits, and abruptly cutting off payments to others without explanation.

Filed by the Legal Aid Justice Center, Legal Aid Works, the Virginia Poverty Law Center, and other groups, the lawsuit is seeking relief for the thousands of Virginians who have lost jobs during the pandemic, and who are still waiting on the VEC to approve their unemployment insurance claims.

According to the latest statistics from the VEC, nearly 1.6 million unemployment claims have been filed in Virginia since March 27, 2020. While weekly unemployment claims have decreased since this time last year, thousands of Virginians are still seeking relief from the state’s system. For the filing week of April 3, 2021, the VEC recorded 57,371 continued claims.

“After getting cut off benefits, I became homeless for roughly four months,” said Lenita Gibson, a plaintiff in the suit, in a press release. “I have no income now, other than food stamps. I have a roof over my head again, for now, only through temporary assistance from rent relief program.”

The suit focuses on two failures by VEC regarding employment benefits: the snail’s pace at which applications for unemployment benefits are reviewed, and the abrupt cut-off of benefits without proper notification to residents.

According to the suit, it’s currently taking at least 10 weeks (anecdotal evidence reports periods much longer) for nearly all unemployment claims to processed. That’s seven weeks beyond the three-week limit required by law for a claim to be addressed. Some residents have also reported that their employment benefits abruptly ended without any notice or a hearing from the VEC deputy — another violation of the law.

A spokesperson for VEC declined to comment on the suit.

While the American Rescue Plan extended Pandemic Unemployment Assistance for independent contractors and other self-employed workers, and allows other individuals to claim Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation through Sept. 6, the VEC controls the process for claiming and doling out this money. And delays within the commonwealth’s system are denying Virginians access to federal payments, despite Virginia receiving more than $38 million from the federal government to respond to the high levels of unemployment, according to a press release announcing the suit.

“Bureaucratic delays in the processing of unemployment claims by the VEC compound the suffering of newly jobless Virginians,” Steven Fischbach, the litigation director for the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said in the press release. “Without income, these Virginias face the loss of their homes. Without income, these Virginians face the loss of their homes through foreclosure or eviction, shut off essential services such as gas, electricity and water, and they cannot pay other bills.”

The legal action comes after more than a year of beleaguered unemployment systems in the region failing to meet residents’ needs as job losses skyrocketed. Earlier this month, the VEC limited some of its unemployment website functions while it investigated reports of fraud — which only made it harder for residents seeking unemployment assistance in Virginia, which ranks 50th in the nation for its response to filed claims.

In late March, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) wrote a letter to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, with several demands of the governor and the VEC to improve the broken system, calling the delays “unconscionable.”

“From Newport News to Henrico to Alexandria, constituents are contacting my office from every corner of the Commonwealth with desperate requests for relief. Some of them have waited 3 months, others have waited 11 months, and many are struggling to feed their children and keep a roof over their heads,” Warner wrote.

Meanwhile, VEC is planning to reinstate a stipulation in the near future that requires an individual to apply to at least two jobs a week in order to claim unemployment benefits. This work-search requirement was suspended during the pandemic.

Delays in unemployment claims and nightmarish government systems are not isolated to Virginia. Residents in neighboring Maryland and D.C. have also waited weeks or months for relief, forcing some to skip meals, borrow money from friends and family, or even lose their homes.