New Jersey officials vowed Saturday to speed up the processing of unemployment claims despite relying on a 40-year-old computer system that has been overwhelmed by the record number of requests due to the coronavirus crisis.

Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said a plan to increase phone lines, train additional staff to handle claims and provide laptops to workers at home will help ease the crushing amount of claims being sought amid the economic meltdown brought upon by the virus.

"There is nothing I want more than to put your hard-earned benefits into your family budget sooner," he said at Gov. Phil Murphy's daily coronavirus briefing.

Recently jobless New Jerseyans have experienced heavy lag times or issues while trying to collect unemployment insurance, partly due to a "clunky" 1980s computer system that the Department of Labor still depends upon to process claims and issue checks.

"We literally have a system that is forty-plus years old," Murphy said.

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"There will be lots of postmortems and one of them on our list will be: how did we get here when we literally need COBOL programmers," Murphy said of the outdated computer language.

Weekly unemployment insurance applications skyrocketed in recent weeks as Murphy ordered nonessential retail businesses closed and New Jerseyans to stay at home.

More than 206,000 submitted claims for the first time from March 22 to 28 - a 1,600% increase. That surpassed any week during the Great Recession or the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

To put that in perspective: In the past two weeks, New Jerseyans submitted three-quarters of the claims they submitted in all of 2019.

Asaro-Angelo made a number of assurances to those applying. Among them:

Every claim that is processed will be paid, albeit probably with a delay.

Residents will receive an additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits from the federal government. It will arrive "a few days" after their state unemployment check.

Agency officials have to wait for federal guidance before giving unemployment checks to self-employed and independent contractors, who are now eligible for benefits.

Asaro-Angelo said his agency has posted new instructions in "plain-language" on its website to help residents.

"We recognize this is small consolation when the bills are due today," he said.

While Labor Department employees are receiving more than 10 times the caseloads and dealing with the site crashing, Murphy is asking for New Jerseyans' understanding.

"We understand it can get frustrating, we do,” Murphy said Saturday.

He pointed to the work being done to make sure the website and call lines are staffed by state workers inundated by the press of applications.

"But also know these people are working harder than ever while also worrying about their own families,” Murphy said.

New Jersey is also waiting on word from the U.S. Department of Labor before it can fully expand unemployment benefits under the newly-signed federal stimulus, the CARES Act. For instance, self-employed, gig economy workers and freelancers are now eligible for unemployment checks.

"Meanwhile, these workers should apply for unemployment insurance," the state Department of Labor said in a press release. "The application likely will be denied, but that initial denial is a necessary step toward being able to collect the COVID-related benefit. Next, these workers should gather their past two years of tax returns, which will become necessary for their claim to be processed once federal rules are established."

“We are all so very cognizant that there are delays and backups in the system, and we urge everyone to please have patience and your claim will be taken care of and you will not lose one penny of your benefits,” Murphy said Thursday. “But on the other hand, we do have literally thousands of opportunities for employment at essential workplaces listed online.”

Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter in the New Jersey Statehouse. For unlimited access to her work covering New Jersey’s legislature and political power structure, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: balcerzaka@northjersey.com Twitter: @abalcerzak