07/10/2020 Update: They sent me a letter saying j...

07/10/2020 Update: They sent me a letter saying job seeking requirements are returning and I need to create and update my profile on their Job Link site. I went to do this, and it said my SSN was already associated with an account. During the password recovery process, none of my security answers worked, odd given some of them have only one answer for me. That said, I attempted the alternate recovery option involving calling them for a reset code. The number listed goes to what sounds like a woman's personal voicemail and the inbox is full. No one answers on this weekday during business hours. So... What do I do?! Is this all one big joke to our state government? I think they want us to give up. Also, I tried calling my former town's number instead of Pulaski. It at least gave you two selections. I needed to press 2 to speak to a rep. Each time I pressed the number, it said, "Please make a selection." Also, from what I just learned, the number for the Little Rock office doesn't even go to the number for Job Services if you do actually speak to someone. They only redirect you to another useless voicemail. Failure. Absolute failure.

Original Post: The Covid-19 situation has opened my eyes to just how unprepared and unfair the process for obtaining assistance is in the state of Arkansas. No one in the desperate time of having no income should have to wait for weeks like this with no idea what is going on with their applications. Between yesterday and today, I had to call (literally) 50 times before being lucky enough to be placed on hold (the shortest amount of time I was on hold was 40 min, the longest being an hour and a half before the call was dropped) just able to speak to someone and then get zero answers. The communication is entirely one way, leaving the citizens in a state of limbo unable to plan their lives and terrified that after all this, they may not qualify. Not even a status update to tell me why my case is taking so long. The website looks and operates like it hasn't changed in 20 years. I know that they are under a lot of pressure right now, but having the kinks worked out of this system should have happened a long time before this. When your case is assigned to someone, you should have open contact with that person, especially on something so personal and vital as the only income option you may have at the moment. This needs to change now. What is it going to take to change it? Is anyone working on that? Who can I talk to about getting to have that open contact with my assigned agent? Do we need to get political with this? Write to the news stations? These are answers owed to the people by those at Arkansas DWS. Most of their employees may not be failing by any fault of their own, but their function is essential, and the undeniable fact that they are failing to help the people in any effective or efficient manner has to fall on someone's shoulders. Who is that person?