Dupage Policy Journal

 State Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) is demanding the answers she thinks frustrated, cash-strapped taxpayers are desperately in need of.

“In recent months, Illinois Department of Employment Security has issued around 1% of its unemployment checks within seven days of the initial applications, making it the slowest state in the nation by that measure,” she said. “We’re seven months into the pandemic and governor has still not fixed problems at IDES. It’s a monumental failure.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic instantly pushing more than 2 million Illinois residents into unemployment and in desperate need of benefits, critics’ charge IDES has failed to meet the moment. Almost overnight, the agency has gone from being ranked among national leaders for speedy delivery to one worst in the nation on several key performance measures.

The list of excuses offered up by Gov. J.B. Pritzker ranges from his Republican predecessor leaving the agency inadequately staffed to having to work with outdated equipment. Grant isn’t buying it, calling for a complete audit of the system and hearings to address the issues once and for all.

“It is unconscionable that problems with people obtaining unemployment benefits owed to them still persist,” she said.  

According to the Better Government Association, from March through August of this year, IDES paid out upwards of $14.2 billion to roughly 2.1 million claimants, though the agency admits that workers sometimes “moved jobless claims that came through elected officials to the front of the line over applications that came directly from taxpayers.”

Grant fumes that violation doesn’t nearly tell the whole story of how those in the greatest need have continued to fall victim.

“As Gov. Pritzker prepared to issue COVID-19-related executive orders that closed or restricted the majority of businesses in our state, he had to know that his actions would put an incredibly large number of people out of work,” Grant added. “He had a responsibility to make sure his Department of Employment Security was ready for the massive influx of filings that would be coming. He completely failed.”