A group of state lawmakers is calling for Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and a Legislative Joint Committee Investigation into the Labor Department's handling of unemployment benefits since this virus outbreak began. 

Sens. Joseph A. Griffo, James L. Seward and Assembly members Marianne Buttenschon and Mark Walczyk, wrote that the increase in the Department's staff and changes to the system have done nothing to make the process any easier on the people still waiting for their benefits. 

"These are individuals, who through no fault of their own, are dependent on the state to provide the help that they are entitled to, but who have instead gotten indefinite and intolerable waits,” Griffo said. 

In late April, the Labor Department experience a security breach that impacted around three dozen New Yorkers. They were contacted and received free credit monitoring for a year, according to state officials. 

"At a time when individuals and families need the state to come through for them they are instead left hurting and in the dark,” Seward said.  “The Department of Labor has come up short in multiple ways and a security failure is one more issue to add to the list of serious violations."

Lawmakers, many who have been working to help constituents with processing their claims, say this is not enough. 

"The investigation by the Comptroller's Office is essential,” Buttenschon said. "To ensure accountability as well as to eliminate those bottlenecks in the system that are preventing people from having their claims approved and their benefits started.  I have heard from hundreds of constituents who are on the verge of giving up hope not because of the virus but because the system that is supposed to help them is repeatedly failing."