Senator Don White is working on some legislation that would make it easier for people seeking unemployment compensation to access “walk-in” services at five of the state’s UC Service centers.
The five service centers are located in Indiana, Duquesne, Erie, Harrisburg, and Scranton. In a media release, Senator White said that this would be a bit of a throwback to when people had to apply in person for unemployment compensation, before technology made it more convenient to use a call center service.
Senator White’s legislation comes on the heels of Governor Wolf’s Announcement in November of the State Department of Labor and Industry laying off nearly 600 of its staffers at service centers in Altoona, Allentown, and Lancaster. The senate had rejected a request by the governor to approve a bill to make over $57 million available for Unemployment Compensation Service Centers. In the prior four years, there had been transfers that totaled $180 million out of the Unemployment Compensation fund to pay for a comprehensive upgrade to the technology used to process unemployment compensation claims. Senator White said that those upgrades were never completed.
Senator White said the Senate did not approve the bill because they did not get a response from the Wolf administration to questions as to why another transfer was needed or why the technology upgrades were not completed in the last four years. He added that they may agree to the funding extension in the future.
