{"id":306649,"date":"2025-10-16T00:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/306649\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T00:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T00:07:14","slug":"arizona-residents-claim-system-switch-halts-unemployment-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/306649\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona residents claim system switch halts unemployment benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHOENIX<\/strong> – Arizonans are saying they\u2019re having massive issues with the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES). After the state switched to a new system online, many said they haven\u2019t received their unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n

The backstory:<\/p>\n

When the DES website launched “Cactus” in September, it said, “A Better Way to Access Unemployment Insurance Services is Now Available!”\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a long line of people saying it only made things worse.<\/p>\n

Local perspective:<\/p>\n

Jamil Clark had enough and decided to bike to the local office of the Arizona DES. He lost his job as a behavioral health technician and filed for unemployment on Sept. 4.<\/p>\n

“When I thought I had it figured out, I don\u2019t have it figured out,” said Clark, who lives in Phoenix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He still hasn\u2019t received a dime.<\/p>\n

The phone lines didn\u2019t help. “And there was no human to talk to at all,” Clark said.<\/p>\n

So he waited there. He and all the others outside the office on Oct. 15 were told it would be a 4-hour wait.<\/p>\n

Clark filed for unemployment just as the department launched a new portal, billed as helping people track claims, called “Cactus.”<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s when all the problems started,” said Eric of Tempe, who has been waiting since Aug. 1.<\/p>\n

“Going ten weeks if you don\u2019t have resources, you\u2019re on the street,” he said.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

According to the department’s dashboard online, while new claims for unemployment have remained steady, new payouts have dropped several hundred a week on average.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The department did not respond to an interview request.<\/p>\n

Why you should care:<\/p>\n

Eric is concerned layoffs in June at the department have only contributed.<\/p>\n

“They laid off 500 people and then they implement a new operating system thinking that this is gonna streamline things cause that\u2019s what all the media report said, right\u2014 streamline everything, everything\u2018s gonna be better, you know it made everything worse,” Eric said.<\/p>\n

FOX 10 repeatedly asked for a statement in the last 24 hours, informing the department of plans to report this, but didn\u2019t get a response to the questions.<\/p>\n

Many people have also complained about issues with food stamps and other DES-related problems in the last few weeks, so the scope of any issues remains unclear.<\/p>\n

The Source:<\/b> This information was gathered by FOX 10’s Steve Nielsen, who spoke with residents outside the DES office on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

Phoenix<\/a>News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX – Arizonans are saying they\u2019re having massive issues with the Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES). After…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":306650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1588,50,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-306649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-maricopa-county","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-phoenix","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115380934863312199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}