Not emailing back is a classic plausible deniability strategy. No one is asking for a response right now. Or even later today. Or even a week or even a month from now.

But if the NJ government’s budget does not allow them to respond to a single email after multiple months, that is a sign of intentional negligence, or a failed state.

... or a massively underfunded government, which is precisely what the policies of one of our two major political parties for the last 40 years (at least) have sought to create (they are quite open about this). But hey, maybe that fits under the "intentional negligence" category...

That would make sense on a federal level. But not in NJ which is solid Democrat, and definitely not with their among the highest in the nation taxes.

Again, I am giving quite a bit of leeway. At 14 months with no response, that is not understaffing. That is deliberate sabotage by leaders to prevent people from getting benefits.

You understand that even NJ taxes are low by comparsion with most western European nations, yes? And that even in those nations, people still find publically-facing government agencies frustrating to deal with?

Still, I'm inclined to agree with you that some of what you describe in your 2nd para is likely happening too.

>And that even in those nations, people still find publically-facing government agencies frustrating to deal with?

That seems to contradict your assertion that the government would have given him better service had more taxes been directed at them.

Having worked in this space my cynical observation is that you don't get the budget to run a big appeals process and a quality watchdog team, etc, etc, if you don't suck bad enough to need those things in the first place.

Or a lack of effective metrics tracking and performance management. Maybe those metrics would show the offices were operating at tip-top efficiency and were deserving of additional budget to better serve their constituents. Or maybe it would show something else entirely, but either way the data would be useful.

If you call NJ unemployment offices anytime after 8:05AM, you get a message saying to call back the next day. 22 months after the pandemic started.

All the leaders know what is happening. It has been in the news many times.

Ok. Is that enough evidence to conclude that “they need more budget and then things would be fixed”?

No, my initial comment was the system was designed to in such a way as to inconvenience people and hope they get tired of trying to collect the money.

That is the problem it is so difficult to determine whether the negligence is intentional or not.

I've found it ridiculously easy to add web beacons to emails to political critters.

No.

The problem is that systems are deliberately designed to be difficult to navigate in order to discourage use.

It isn't money. It is a belief that recipients are not deserving, and so should be made to "pay" for it or denied altogether.

That's not even broadly true.

I worked for a state agency that make workforce services software for several states. Not unemployment, but the other programs to help people find jobs and/or get retrained.

The management overwhelmingly wanted to find ways to help people and spend the money (that's how they get bigger grants, after all, by spending all of the last one and "coming up short"). The majority of the staff wanted to help people and spend the state's money as well.

But the rules are arcane and the agencies are perpetually understaffed and the software systems are terrible (federal programs often allow too small of a fraction of the allocated money to be spent on administration). So it's still a hell of a thing to get the money spent helping people, even if everybody's heart is in the right place.

The problems are myriad, but I'd say the biggest issue is state legislators that are unwilling to invest in modernization in "good times" when the benefits programs aren't over-taxed, and then wonder why the systems (both technical and people) can't scale when society needs the help.

> But the rules are arcane and the agencies are perpetually understaffed

Exactly, and this is by design. Here is how it was designed to not work in Florida:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/florida-unemployment...

But the general outline is the same most everywhere.

> management overwhelmingly wanted to find ways to help

They don't matter, they don't set the rules or the budget.

> But the rules are arcane and the agencies are perpetually understaffed and the software systems are terrible

This is not accidental.

Well, sure, that's also a factor when it comes to specific government functions such as an unemployment benefit division. But it's overlaid on top of the general lack of adequate staffing, which in turn reflects taxation policy.

Collectively the American people support efforts like what you describe. Their voices do not affect policy, though. Only those of billionaires and corporate lobbyists do.

>"pay enough taxes to staff government agencies at sufficient levels"

Our government already runs at a tremendous deficit. They can keep borrowing longer than we can remain on the run from the law.

Edit: I had actually completely misread the GP's comment. I had somehow thought they meant that we should do a tax-strike in order to force the government to reform. My cynical counterargument was that they would just borrow to make up for the missed revenue until the protestors gave-in or were arrested.

> Our government already runs at a tremendous deficit.

Because we pay less in taxes than we (as the people who elect our governments) choose to spend. Sure, we could spend less, but we could also tax more (a LOT more), and have done so in the past.

US tax revenue is broadly about 25% of GDP, significantly lower than the 33% that's average in the OECD

It reached it's lowest since 1965, 22.9%, in 2009. Highest recently was 2017 (27%), and in 2000 it reached 28.3%

The Clinton years were probably what you're looking for, where tax revenues increased linearly from 25.6% to 28.3%, but through the 70s and 80s it varied from 24 to 26%, same as now.

Not sure if an extra 1% of GDP would fall in your "LOT more" category, but it seems far less than normal countries raise.

I completely misread your comment. I had somehow thought you meant that we should do a tax-strike in order to force the government to reform. My cynical counterargument was that they would just borrow to make up for the missed revenue until the protestors gave-in or were arrested.