[9YearLurker]

How hard can it be to reprogram a system to pay out $400 payments to a group of people who had been getting $600?

[aimhigh]

How hard can it be to reprogram a system to pay out $400 payments to a group of people who had been getting $600?

The programming has to include the accounting, (charges to the Feds, new charges to the states), accounting for future overpayments, date limitations, etc. Not an overnight change.

[Deo volente]

How hard can it be to reprogram a system to pay out $400 payments to a group of people who had been getting $600?

Here in California, when you're dealing with the state unemployment agency, it's very hard indeed to reprogram the system or even to get it to work in the first place. About a million unemployed residents of the state have yet to see a penny of their benefits, and it's been five months of gridlock and incredible incompetence.

The computer system and website is using code that was obsolete years ago, and estimates are that only 5% of phone calls actually get through to a live person, who may or may not know how to respond. The governor called them out last week and appointed a "strike force" to go over their heads and get things moving. An incredible mess.