CBS Denver ran a story in December outlining the problems unemployed Coloradans were experiencing with the state’s unemployment benefits system.
If you thought Polis might have got his act together and cured the bureaucratic dysfunction at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) over the last two months, you would be sadly mistaken.
The CDLE is officially suspending briefings to the public and journalists about the systemic problems issuing unemployment benefits at the agency.
Outraged Coloradans struggling to receive benefits rallied outside the CDLE this week and called for the governor to get off his you know what.
They protestors have reason to be upset with Polis.
The governor’s post-Thanksgiving restaurant shutdowns have saddled the state with 8.4% unemployment, the fourth highest in the entire nation.
A local economist told the Denver Post earlier this week Polis’s shutdowns “killed the economy from an employment perspective.”
Not only did Polis destroy Colorado’s once booming labor market, his CDLE is also too dysfunctional to help the very people whose jobs were eliminated by Polis’s own shutdowns.
One of the rally organizers ripped Polis for delaying assistance for eligible claimants until Feb. 22.
“He’s supposed to be helping people, and he refuses to acknowledge what’s going on with unemployment in the state of Colorado,” Ripley said.