New York State's Labor Commissioner says her office is working seven days a week to clear up the enormous backlog of people trying to file their unemployment insurance claims.
Roberta Reardon says these are the greatest numbers of claims ever filed; millions per week. She says in six weeks the Labor Department has gotten more than a million people their benefits, four-and-a-half times what Florida has been able to do. But Reardon says that's no comfort if you haven't been able to get yours yet. She has 3,100 people working to clear the backlog.
Reardon says her staff has been handling up to a million calls per day. She says the major problem holding up benefits is lack of the federal employee identification number which has to go on the application, and she directed businesses statewide to make sure laid-off workers are supplied with that information.