[2006alum]

These kinds of stories make me so angry. As a nation, we have so horribly dropped the ball...

Colorado — like most states and territories across the country — is experiencing record unemployment numbers. But the state’s unemployment system is built on aging software running on a decades-old coding language known as COBOL. Over the years, COBOL programmers have aged out of the workforce, forcing states to scramble for fluent coders in times of national crisis.

A survey by The Verge found that at least 12 states still use COBOL in some capacity in their unemployment systems. Alaska, Connecticut, California, Iowa, Kansas, and Rhode Island all run on the aging language. According to a spokesperson from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, the state was actually only a month or two away from “migrating into a new environment and away from COBOL,” before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

As the pandemic has millions out of work, these systems have become a barrier for the recently unemployed. The federal labor department reported 16.8 million unemployment claims were filed between March 15th and April 4th. That’s approximately 13 percent of the US’s workforce, outstripping even the height of the 2008 financial crash, where unemployment topped off at around 10 percent. As more stores and businesses shutter as a result of the pandemic, the US’s unemployment systems are experiencing an unprecedented amount of traffic and requests — and states don’t have the resources to maintain them.

Let me see if I have this straight: once someone loses their job (due to no fault of their own -- in a pandemic), they also lose their health insurance (pretty necessary in a pandemic), and if they live in one of the 12 states that are programmed in the computer equivalent of espiranto, they may have to wait weeks to months to receive a fraction of their former income. And because they're looking for work in an instant great depression (again, thanks to the pandemic), all they get to tide them over is $1,200 (if they're lucky). 

Meanwhile, Ivy League universities with a collective endowment north of $200 billion have already received $44 million+?
[tweet]https://twitter.com/schlaf/status/1250931948555513862?s=20[/tweet]

[2006alum]

These kinds of stories make me so angry. As a nation, we have so horribly dropped the ball...

Colorado — like most states and territories across the country — is experiencing record unemployment numbers. But the state’s unemployment system is built on aging software running on a decades-old coding language known as COBOL. Over the years, COBOL programmers have aged out of the workforce, forcing states to scramble for fluent coders in times of national crisis.

A survey by The Verge found that at least 12 states still use COBOL in some capacity in their unemployment systems. Alaska, Connecticut, California, Iowa, Kansas, and Rhode Island all run on the aging language. According to a spokesperson from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, the state was actually only a month or two away from “migrating into a new environment and away from COBOL,” before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

As the pandemic has millions out of work, these systems have become a barrier for the recently unemployed. The federal labor department reported 16.8 million unemployment claims were filed between March 15th and April 4th. That’s approximately 13 percent of the US’s workforce, outstripping even the height of the 2008 financial crash, where unemployment topped off at around 10 percent. As more stores and businesses shutter as a result of the pandemic, the US’s unemployment systems are experiencing an unprecedented amount of traffic and requests — and states don’t have the resources to maintain them.

Let me see if I have this straight: once someone loses their job (due to no fault of their own -- in a pandemic), they also lose their health insurance (pretty necessary in a pandemic), and if they live in one of the 12 states that are programmed in the computer equivalent of espiranto, they may have to wait weeks to months to receive a fraction of their former income. And because they're looking for work in an instant great depression (again, thanks to the pandemic), all they get to tide them over is $1,200 (if they're lucky). 

Meanwhile, Ivy League universities with a collective endowment north of $200 billion have already received $44 million+?
[tweet]https://twitter.com/schlaf/status/1250931948555513862?s=20[/tweet]