Lake County Gazette

Republican state House candidate Dan Yost rages Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s misguided priorities are coming at a high price for tapped-out Illinois taxpayers.

“After three months, Illinoisans are still struggling to get help so they can pay next month’s bills,” Yost told the Lake County Gazette. “This is absolutely shameful. We saw millions of taxpayer dollars wasted in crazy spending projects, yet Pritzker can’t help the people who are actually struggling from the fallout of his decisions.”

Yost’s growing outrage stems from reports that thousands of people are finding it maddeningly difficult to get through for help with unemployment claims stemming from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“You deserve better, added Yost, who is running against incumbent state Rep. Joyce Mason (D-Gurnee) in the 61st District.

While the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) claims a team of 512 workers is now assigned to taking calls and processing claims with an additional 562 call center reps in a virtual call center also part of the mix, the number of complaints about badly handled inquiries making the situation even more infuriating are also rising.

Yost recently joined a number of GOP lawmakers in calling for a complete audit of IDES.

“I support (state) Rep. Terri Bryant for Illinois’ call to audit this government agency,” he said in a post to Facebook. “The agency is responsible for exposing the private data of thousands of citizens and has still yet to provide any answers to reassure the public.”

The push for an audit comes after IDES suffered a massive data breach in which the information of at least 32,000 claimants was made public, and the agency has consistently failed to measure up in handling the flood of unemployment claims in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Let’s hold the politicians accountable and get to the bottom of this,” Yost added.