Taxing Long Island: The upgrade and drawback for the new online system for unemployment insurance

New York State unemployment insurance will be temporarily offline because of an upgrade to their computer system. This is really a great upgrade for our customers. The upgrade started Monday and New York State Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon says the upgrade will last for the next nine to 12 days. That means you'll have to wait for your payment and the system will not accept new claims for almost two weeks. Don't worry, you will not lose any money. When the system is back up, you can go in and start your new application and the system will ask you what day did you lose your job. And so you'll be backdated to that date. Reardon says the upgrade is needed because the system is outdated. This will be easier to access, more efficient and secure. For the first time, all of our customers can use their smartphones to Certify their weekly benefits to start a new application to send us documents. They certainly won't need a fax. Those days are over. Antoinette Biardi, News 12.