Coronavirus New Jersey: Hundreds Of Thousands Of Residents Left With No Source Of Income After Unemployment Website Crashed Over Weekend
COLLINGSWOOD, N.J. (CBS) -- Problems are persisting in New Jersey as more people say they are unable to file their unemployment claims. More than 900,000 people have filed since mid-March, many of whom say they have not been paid.
Not helping the situation, the unemployment website crashed over the weekend, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey with no source of income and seemingly nowhere else to turn.
"I don't know who to contact anymore and who is going to listen anymore," Joe Chelhowski said.
Chelhowski lost his job as a car dealership sales manager seven weeks ago and he immediately filed for unemployment.
"I have heard nothing back from the state. I had a piece of mail that said I filed my claim," he said.
To help out his case, Chelhowski has reached out to state Sen. James Beach, almost daily. A representative for the senator says they have two people solely working on unemployment issues.
"They said they had a two-week turnaround and they were getting people on unemployment. Unfortunately, now it's three weeks," Chelhowski said.
"How much longer can you possibly hold on before the bottom falls out?" CBS3's Howard Monroe asked.
"It would've been yesterday if it wasn't for the stimulus check coming through. I probably would've had $60 in my account," Chelhowski said.
"Stay with it. We deeply appreciate your patience and know that you will not lose one penny of what's coming to you," Gov. Phil Murphy said.
Murphy spoke about the problems on Monday. The state Labor Department says they're working through 300,000 unapproved claims.
But they say the majority of them are self-employed, gig workers or independent contractors.
They were previously not allowed to file for unemployment and Murphy says they are creating a backlog in the system.
"They're saying bear with us, but seven weeks, how can you keep bearing with them? You start to go crazy trying to handle it," Chelhowski said.
Another issue people say they have are the automated emails and voicemail setup. The state says they will get back to everyone and while it's hard, they're asking for some patience.