The ongoing investigation found that EDD has backlogs of approximately 1.6 million unemployment claims which has largely been attributed to outdated technology and manual processing.
“During the week ending August 22, 2020, EDD received an average of 60,368 new electronic claims each day, and an average of 40% of those claims was routed for manual processing: 24,147 manual claims per day, a tenfold increase” in comparison to pre-pandemic EDD claims,” according to the Strike Team.
Out with the old, in with the new
The strike team recommended that a “commercial identity verification tool should be implemented immediately to enable automatic processing of more claims to get payments into the hands of claimants faster,” drastically reducing the EDD’s backlog to manageable levels.
Currently, the California EDD mails notices to claimants if there are any information discrepancies on unemployment claims, requiring claimants to either mail or fax their response and provide pertinent documentation to prove one’s identity. To make matters worse, EDD personnel are then required to review each claimant’s response manually which has been an incredible source of frustration for thousands of legitimate applicants.
