SALEM — Nearly half of Oregon jobless claims filed during the coronavirus outbreak have gone unpaid, the state disclosed on May 27, significantly ratcheting up the scale of the state’s benefits crisis.

The Oregon Employment Department told a legislative hearing that approximately 220,000 claims have yet to be paid, well over two months into the outbreak. After the hearing, though, the department’s spokeswoman said the actual number is closer to 200,000.

Employment department leaders discussed the issue for the first time at a state legislative hearing as they endeavored to persuade lawmakers that they have a plan to deal with the enormous volume of unpaid claims.

“Thousands of Oregonians have been left wondering if their benefits will arrive in time to pay their bills,” acknowledged department director Kay Erickson in her first public comments on the crisis in more than a month.

“For the thousands of Oregonians who are still waiting,” Erickson said, “I do apologize.”

Her presentation consumed the entire hour of the scheduled testimony, leaving no time for lawmakers’ questions. Committee Chairman Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, instructed his colleagues to submit written questions instead.

Oregon has fielded 440,000 jobless claims since the middle of March, according to David Gerstenfeld, director of a division within the employment department. He testified that a little more than 220,000 claims have been paid.

The math for determining just how many people have unpaid claims is extremely complex.

The total 440,000 claims Oregon reported Wednesday excludes thousands who filed for a new class of jobless benefits for self-employed workers that Congress created in March.

However, the employment department estimated Wednesday night that the 220,000 unpaid claims it disclosed at the legislative hearing includes up to 25,000 self-employed workers who had filed previously for regular benefits, before the state had established a separate application process for them.

That would lower the total number of regular, unpaid claims to as few as 195,000. But thousands of those self-employed workers haven’t been paid, either, from the newly created program. The state hasn’t said just how many are waiting for their money.

The department had previously disclosed that it had processed 366,000 regular claims, but hadn’t previously said how many of those processed claims it had actually paid.

Among the regular claims that Oregon has processed but hasn’t paid, Gerstenfeld said some are duplicate claims, others are newly filed, and some are especially complicated. Many others are simply backlogged.

In normal times it takes about three weeks for new jobless claims to be paid, according to the employment department.

Oregon, like other states, is dealing with an unprecedented spike in jobless claims. The state’s unemployment rate jumped from a historic low in March, 3.5%, to a record high of 14.2% in April.

The state is also dealing with an antiquated computer system that dates to the 1990s, which has complicated efforts to cope with the influx of claims — especially because of recent changes in the benefits program that Congress authorized to deal with impacts from the coronavirus outbreak.

Oregon received more than $85 million in federal funding to upgrade the system in 2009 but has only begun the process in the last few years. It won’t be complete until 2025.

The employment department’s phone system is hopelessly overwhelmed by the crisis. Relatively few calls get through and callers routinely spend several hours on hold — and most of those calls are never answered, according to employment department data.

This article was originally published by the The Oregonian/OregonLive, one of more than a dozen news organizations throughout the state sharing their coverage of the novel coronavirus outbreak to help inform Oregonians about this evolving heath issue.