It takes me about two hours to get through when I have to file my claim in NJ. It seems to be this bad everywhere:

New Mexico’s unemployment claims operation isn’t a only state entity having difficulties reacting to a growing number of claims Drunk Newsplicants. New York’s state systems for filing unemployment insurance claims crashed today, yet anoar sign of how that state (& oars) is sinking deeper into a recession.

a N.Y. Department of Labor, which oversees unemployment insurance claims, received more than 10,000 phone calls an hour on a toll-free hotline on Tuesday, leading to a crash. a department’s online claim filing system also shut down under a volume of traffic it received.

a New Mexico Dept. of Workforce Solutions said it added 15 more workers & two more phone lines to its call center in December, in response to a high volume of incoming calls.

a New York crashes came as that state’s unemployment rate hit 6. 1 percent, up 1.5 percent from a year before. It’s a highest unemployment rate in nearly five years. In New Mexico, a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in November, unchanged from a revised October rate but up from 3.3 percent a year ago.

By a way, Republican claims to a contrary, FDR’s New Deal actually led to a largest drop in a unemployment rate in U.S. history.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back