Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters.HARRISBURG Flanked by Democrats in the House and Senate, Gov. Tom Wolf took to the steps of the Capitol this week to push for more than $1 billion in new funding for .
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A long-delayed upgrade of Pennsylvania’s computer system for unemployment benefits made a glitch-filled debut Tuesday, frustrating some jobless workers and confirming the concerns of critics who feared the new system would buckle under the heavy, pandemic-fueled demand.
Within the first 12 hours of the launch, more than 62,000 Pennsylvanians had filed claims and the Department of Labor & Industry deemed the new system a success.
At the same time, jobless advocates and scores of unemployed Pennsylvanians expressed an outpouring of frustration as a new wave of problems blocked numerous people from filing for benefits they had already been approved for.
Some people who were receiving benefits through the old system last week were told they were ineligible. Others were refused benefits because they were incorrectly identified as incarcerated. Still others had payments stopped because of overpayments that had long ago been resolved. Some notices of eligibility were bafflingly date
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