Lawyers Urge Halt to DWD's 'Aggressive' Attempts To Collect On Unemployment Errors Unable to load the audio player. playpausemuteunmute Article origination IPBS-RJC Twenty-year-old Luis Vazquez lost his job constructing barricades in March, right before COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic. Like tens of thousand of Hoosiers since then, he considered applying for unemployment insurance. “My mom was actually the one who said, you should try for unemployment,” Vazquez said. “I said, there's no way I'll get it. And she's like, well just try. See what happens.” So Vazquez tried. He was denied at first, but then he got a letter from the state saying, maybe try applying for this new program Congress created called Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. He followed the state’s instructions and within weeks he started getting money.