On Politics: Hawaii’s inability and bungling on unemployment insurance exacerbate human suffering

Of all the many pandemic-caused problems facing Hawaii, one of the fiercest is the unemployment insurance crisis.

It is a constant, almost incurable infection rippling through the state, on one level shredding Hawaii’s state budget and on a more frightening level reducing local families to poverty.

Hawaii last year started borrowing more than $734 million to cover unemployment claims.

According to Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports, the state doesn’t have to pay back the original loan, but owes $20.8 million in interest payments that will be due starting March 15, along with additional interest payments of $39 million due in 2023 because of the ongoing loans.

Then for a myriad of reasons, local unemployed workers are unable to collect unemployment insurance. The state’s computers are too old, the programming needs help, there aren’t enough people to process claims and the state has hundreds of thousands of workers trying to get benefits processed.

At the beginning of this month, the state promised a new system. “The cloud-hosted, software-as-a-service application with superior technology, lower total costs, and more flexible capabilities will transform the way the DLIR provides essential services to unemployed workers, to employers of the state of Hawaii, and to the United States Department of Labor,” the state reported.

That, of course, is a promise, not an up-and-running program.

With the unemployment crisis, Hawaii has a surplus of promises and a big minus in the answers column.

Since the COVID-19 virus struck, the administration of Gov. David Ige has dealt a weak, mostly reactionary hand that has consistently been unable to meet the demands of Hawaii’s unemployed.

It showed up early in the year when the state Legislature was forced to step in to help organize and staff the unemployment office with volunteers answering questions and processing claims. But having Rep. Sylvia Luke, Finance Committee chairwoman, answering the phone is not a solution to the problem.

Months later, little is better and the frustration is mounting, with unemployed workers facing stacks of unpaid bills. According to reports, the state has gotten 602,000 claims, and paid out $4.8 billion in regular or special state and federal benefits, but many more have not even heard from unemployment officials about their claims.

Last week, the unemployed participated in a demonstration organized by the Hawaii Workers Center and the Unite Here Local 5 labor union.

Genna Weinstein, Local 5 president, appealed to lawmakers for help, according to a Star-Advertiser report. “No one’s listening to workers,” she said at the Capitol. “We need the politicians to hear the workers.”

Rally organizer and labor activist John Witeck said: “The current situation is inhumane. We’re nearly a year into this. The system is broken.”

Of the many problems ignored or mishandled by the Ige administration, the inability to solve the unemployment insurance claim backlog probably carries with it the highest cost in human suffering and worry.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.