Governor Phil Murphy had no answers on Wednesday when confronted at his daily COVID-19 presser over a policy which restricts state and federal legislators’ abilities to advocate for the unemployed.
“As I’ve said many times here, a lot of these cases of late, late being as far back as last May or June, with exceptions when there are windows where the entire system requires a fix, that these are very particular specific cases to the individual’s circumstance,” Murphy told the Media. “So I know we take that very seriously. I know the commissioner is taking it seriously. I’ve got no more color on that.”
–
There’s little evidence that Murphy is taking any of it seriously.
Despite a persisent unemployment benefit backlog, the governor declined to dedicate sufficient funds to fix the system in his new budget proposal. He said the appropriation would be a “waste.”
What’s more, the new aforementioned Murphy Administration policy limits representatives like Congressman Chris Smith (R, NJ-04) to submitting 25 cases on a biweekly basis on a state-administered case management system.
“Under the new policy, it will take over a year before my staff and I will be able to re-submit (as instructed) the 700 current pending cases which I had already initiated with NJDOL — not to mention the new inquiries I receive each day from constituents who are desperately seeking their benefits,” Smith wrote in a March 10th letter.
Murphy did find the time to criticize Smith for voting against the $1.9 trillion stimulus package after ducking the original question.
New Jersey’s unemployment rate is nearly back up to 8% under the Dermocrat governor’s failed economic stewardship, and many unemployed residents are still languishing for months with an inefficient, out-of-date system further frustrated by the inability to reach a live person in Trenton. The new Murphy policy compounds the problem by limiting the ability of representatives like Smith to intervene.
–
