After losing his job last month, Nashawn Cooper waited more than four weeks as the bills piled up and his bank account dwindled to four dollars before the US state of Georgia approved his claim for unemployment benefits.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do,” Cooper, 36, told AFP in a phone interview from his home in Atlanta after finally being approved. “It feels like they heard my anger… like they felt my frustration and they acted fast on it.”
Others are still waiting.
With at least 17 million Americans pushed out of their jobs since mid-March by the coronavirus pandemic, state offices that pay unemployed workers cash assistance are drowning in a tsunami of claims — the extent of which will be further revealed in new Labor Department unemployment data set for release on Thursday.
Governors across the United States are scrambling to relieve their overburdened bureaucracies as the newly jobless sit at home, watching their bank accounts dwindle and hoping assistance arrives soon.
“At the end of this month, I’m done,” said Reuben Isaacson of Boca Raton, Florida, who was laid off from an e-commerce startup last month.
With his unemployment claim pending since the first week of March, the 25-year-old skipped his most recent rent payment and is relying on his mother for money.
“When the moratorium on evictions are lifted and Florida hasn’t paid anybody any money, a bunch of people are going to be homeless and that includes me,” he said.
