Press Releases

MAYS LANDING- Today, Congressman Jeff Van Drew is calling on Governor Murphy to surge resources and create a taskforce over the shortfalls in execution on unemployment payments. Congressman Van Drew is requesting an “around- the-clock” approach and to pool resources (including utilizing short-term contract work for those affected) to fix the problems in an inundated system with outdated computer programming language that was first used in 1959. Congressman Van Drew and his staff are also offering to volunteer support to the state to help process and expedite claims.

“People are hurting and we must do everything in our power to help; I am asking for the Governor to focus every available resource,” said Congressman Van Drew. “We must use all resources at our disposal, and my staff and I are willing to assist. If we can aggregate resources and have teams working together day and night, we can help our people in the timeframe they need.”

Background: More than 1 million people in New Jersey have filed for unemployment benefits, and hundreds of thousands of peoples’ claims are backlogged. Sometimes the fix is as simple as slight edits to the filings but needs personal attention to resolve.

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