The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked an unprecedented economic crisis, during which more than 30 million Americans have relied on state and federal unemployment benefits as a lifeline. While states have delivered hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to the jobless, almost everyone would admit that the process was something like a catamaran sailing during a hurricane. Millions of claimants had to wait weeks to receive their payments, and new benefits promised by the CARES Act to gig workers, students, and others typically ineligible for aid took weeks, even months, to set up and deliver. As a new data dashboard from the Century Foundation and New America makes clear, only 60 percent of unemployment claims submitted by mid-June were paid by June 30--better than in the spring, but still far below historical averages. While some of these claims were made by workers that may be eventually declared ineligible, for many more, it's been a purgatory of pending status.