Feb 23, 2021
Bill Aims To Raise Standards In Marylands Unemployment Insurance Program
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BALTIMORE (WJZ) – The Maryland Department of Labor announced Tuesday it will begin to offer direct deposit to unemployment insurance claimants beginning in April.
A Maryland House bill discussed Thursday in committee aims to establish higher standards on getting payments to claimants in need.
READ MORE: States Could Begin To Get Single-Dose Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Allocations As Soon As Next Week, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Says“Too many Marylanders suffered unnecessarily this year,” Del. Lorig Charkoudian, D-Montgomery Co., said. “You don’t invest. You gut government. Even if you want it to work in a crisis, you can’t expect it to work in a crisis.”
Del. Charkoudian is the sponsor of HB 1002, which would increase the standard of getting payments to claimants within three weeks 92 percent of the time. The current federal standard is 87 percent. The state improved its payments in the month of January but still fell well short of the federal standard.
While still not meeting the federal standard of 87% within 21 days, Maryland improved its timeliness of delivering unemployment benefits.
In January, nearly a third (64.3%) received 1st payment within 3 weeks, the promptest the state has been since April, per @USDOL. pic.twitter.com/dXqwgjW8z4
— Paul Gessler (@PaulGessler) February 23, 2021
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“I’ve spent over 43 hours on the phone with an agent on the phone since July. That’s an entire week of a person’s time, completely wasted,” claimant Andy Spicer testified Tuesday to the Economic Matters Committee. “It was difficult in the beginning to get through—22, 23, 24 calls, attempts before you get through. It is much harder now. It takes days.”
Spicer testified he has been out of work since March and urged lawmakers to mandate better transparency in the Unemployment Insurance process.
“This calling every week and being told things are going to happen is debilitating, to say the least,” Spicer said.
HB 1002 would increase staff at the Department of Labor and offer more translation services and Caller ID.
If passed, HB 1002 would also make it easier for Marylanders without health insurance to be connected with the Maryland Health Exchange.
“We know there are hundreds of thousands of Marylanders still uninsured, many of them eligible for free or low-cost health care,” Vincent DeMarco of Md. Citizens’ Health Initiative said.
The direct deposit payments available in April are a result of a contract with Wells Fargo, per a Labor press release.
MORE NEWS: Body Of Dead Humpback Whale On Maryland Beach Being Removed“The transition to direct deposit will not only provide a multitude of benefits for our claimants but is yet another step Maryland is taking to modernize and maintain the integrity of the state’s unemployment insurance system,” Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson said in a statement.
News Source: cbslocal.com
Tags: baltimore news baltimore baltimore news local tv maryland news talkers unemployment baltimore news it to work in a crisis unemployment insurance unemployment insurance department of labor larry hogan says direct deposit would increase the maryland the maryland improved on the phone standard get through
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Lockheed Martin plant closing means 90 years of work to end
BALTIMORE — Defense contractor Lockheed Martin’s plans to close a plant in Maryland will mean the end of more than 90 years of company manufacturing at the site.
The firm announced on Friday it plans to shutter within two years the Middle River plant, which has 465 employees.
Workers will get the chance to relocate and to telework.
A predecessor company to Lockheed Martin began building aircraft in Middle River in 1929 and later employed tens of thousands of workers.
Lockheed Martin now employs over 3,100 people in Maryland.
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