Madison – Despite billions in federal funding and claiming to have cleared their massive unemployment backlog, Tony Evers continues to mishandle claims. According to constituents from the 8th Senate District, Evers’ Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is unprofessional, rude, and still takes weeks to respond. Senator Alberta Darling says her constituents deserve better than this.
“My constituents are frequently citing unprofessional behavior by DWD representatives, with several documenting encounters with rude, untrained, non-responsive, and combative DWD staff. This is unacceptable,” Darling said, “My constituents are already in a tough spot and the Evers administration is making it worse.”
Quotes from constituents from the 8th Senate District:
- “I need help getting my claim processed. I waited for April-September 2020 January-March 2021 and now again April 10-now. I can’t get a job without a working phone. I need to pay my bills, already experienced homelessness and bankruptcy.”
- “It has been 9+ weeks and still nothing”
- “According to my portal, I am owed 26 weeks of UI…[I] was told if I didn’t like it then to contact my republican legislatures [legislators] and let them know how I feel because it’s their fault. This was just one instance of a lack of professionalism. We have been told that it was representatives 4th week and didn’t know what to do. That did not fill me with confidence.”
- “I am an unfortunate victim of DWD roadkill, called my unemployment claim that has been mismanaged since December 12, 2020. I waited a month and still have no new letter, I called DWD on January 12, 2021, for an update. I talked to the rudest person I can ever recall regarding the status of my unemployment claim. He was personally insulted for calling him (even gave me a lecture for doing so) and wasting his time. He was very demeaning, but I kept my composure, trying to find a solution.”
Last year, an audit from the non-partisan Legislative Audit Bureau showed the Evers administration wasn’t even answering the phone from people desperate to collect the benefits they were owed. According to the audit, only 0.5% of calls were answered from March to June of 2020.
“The Governor is sitting on millions of dollars from the federal government, he has a non-partisan audit as a blueprint and months to implement changes,” Darling said, “Yet he still won’t fix his disastrous Department of Workforce Development. My constituents and everyone in the state deserve better.”
Senator Darling represents portions of Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha Counties.
