The Georgia Department of Labor has issued over $509 million in state and federal benefits since the middle of March. Over 290,600 Georgians were paid benefits last week.
Since March 14th, the GDOL has processed over 861,000 claims, 10% of Georgia’s population. The GDOL announced today that the agency processed 319,581 initial claims during the week of March 29 through April 4. When coupled with last week’s claim numbers, this totals over 700,000 claimants in two weeks. Unemployment initial claims throughout the United States topped 5.2 million last week.
“We are reaching unprecedented claim levels of almost one million Georgians filing for unemployment,” said Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler. “That is one in every ten people who are turning to the GDOL for unemployment assistance. This is a massive undertaking, but one that I know we are capable of achieving.”
During the 2009 recession year, the GDOL processed a million claims with more than 2,000 staff members. Today, the GDOL is processing that number in a month with less than 1,000 staff members.
The department is hiring staff and asking retirees to come back to help handle the volume. Applicants are encouraged to visit the website before contact the agency, at www.dol.georgia.gov.
Starting this week, the GDOL began issuing the $600 federal supplemental payments for those currently receiving state unemployment benefits. GDOL made 286,000 payments Tuesday night that included regular state weekly payments and the additional $600 weekly payments.
