With hundreds of million dollars owed to tens of thousands of unemployed Oregonians, the state employment department made an unusual decision recently -- to wait until August to even touch a long-standing computer problem.
But the massive tech problem isn’t new – the state had been putting it off for a decade, despite having money from the feds to fix it. Now, even with those delays, it’s unclear the state will get the job done and ensure unemployed Oregonians receive critical payments during the pandemic. On the first half of the show, politics reporter Hillary Borrud explains the slow road to the sudden crisis. On the second half of the show, two voices from among the tens of thousands of unemployed Oregonians.
Read:
Hillary Borrud and Mike Rogoway: Why Oregon's leaders failed to address the computer crisis for years
Jamie Goldberg: Stories of the unemployed
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