Greensburg area man's frustration ends, finally gets unemployment benefits

Seven months of frustration trying to get the state to release thousands of dollars in unemployment benefits from last year ended for a Southwest Greensburg man this past weekend when he got a long-awaited check from the Labor Department.

“I won’t have to worry so much,” Scott Flanigan, 58, said Monday about receiving the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits he had been fighting for since last spring. Flanigan, a self-employed beautician, said he got a few checks for the period from mid-March through June, when the state closed beauty salons and barber shops in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus. Then his PUA benefits — designed for gig workers, freelancers and the self-employed — stopped, Flanigan said.

The state is not certain how many freelance, self-employed and gig workers like Flanigan have been awaiting the government’s decision to release benefits they are owed from 2020, Acting Labor & Industry Secretary Jennifer Berrier said Monday during a conference call with reporters.

Under the extended stimulus bill passed in late December by the then-Republican-controlled Senate and signed by former President Trump, Berrier said the state has paid $150 million in benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and another $32.1 million through the federal Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.

The state in late January started distributing benefits accrued earlier in the month. Pennsylvania had to wait for the federal government to provide guidance for distributing the money. Berrier said there was uncertainty over whether Trump would sign the stimulus bill. The former president wanted Republicans to support his last-minute demand that the stimulus bill include $2,000 checks for Americans, rather than the $600 that Republicans had accepted.

Berrier acknowledged some claimants had to wait a long time to file their claims, but the vendor for the computer program has created an online “waiting room” where users can wait during busy times to have their claims processed. Sundays are typically busier, Berrier said, because it is the first day the jobless can file for weekly benefits.

Some of the delays in paying claims was the result of needing to verify a claimant’s identity, Berrier said, because of ongoing problems with fraud.

Criminals are trying to steal the identities of the jobless by creating fake websites that resemble legitimate Labor and Industry websites and seeking personal information from the claimants such as their Social Security number, which Berrier said the state would not do.

“You are never certain who is on the other end” of the computer if someone asks for identifying information, Berrier said.

The state releasing benefits finally was even more crucial now for Flanigan because he has been unable to work the past few months because of health problems. He underwent surgery in October to remove cancer from his jaw. He has been through chemotherapy and radiation treatments for follow-up procedures. Flanigan said he cannot cut hair at this time because his immune system is compromised.

Flanigan blamed his delay on changes made in coding for his benefits, a situation which he could not resolve because he was unable to contact a Labor and Industry employee.

“What about those of us who are unemployed? It makes you feel like it’s an empty promise” when an unemployed worker waits so long for benefits, Flanigan said.