Arizona's aging government computer systems are making life miserable for the legions of newly unemployed. Chad Graham of the Arizona Republic reports on a series of missteps that has left the Department of Economic Security unable to handle claims for tens of thousands of unemployed workers at the height of the country's worst recession in recent memory. Before the recession, the department typically processed about 30,000 claims a week. Now it handles nearly 150,000, Graham reports. And not well. Long waits and errors are so common that many Arizonans are being pushed to the brink of financial desperation and collapse by the very department that is supposed to prevent it.
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In other parts of the country, the welfare checks have resulted in children being taken out of their homes and put back into government custody
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