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"We need to know the plan [for] what's going to get this . . . back to reasonable numbers," Costantino told Sandra M. Powell, the agency's director.

"You've hired a whole bunch of people. You've still got waits, though reduced . . . . We need to see the plan," Costantino said.

State Rep. Elizabeth M. Dennigan (D-East Providence) said, "People are desperate, but it's still taking quite a bit of time" for the unemployed to get their claims for benefits processed.

Powell said she anticipates providing the committee within two weeks a formal plan showing how the agency plans to resolve the problems.

As the number of layoffs has soared across the country, many states - including Rhode Island - have had trouble keeping up with demand.

Rhode Island's unemployment rate is 10.3 percent, one of the highest in the nation, and the highest in Rhode Island in more than 30 years. As a result, the agency has been besieged with calls and e-mails from those who want to file claims for benefits and get questions answered.

About 31,500 people were collecting some type of unemployment benefit through the agency as of Wednesday, up from about 25,660 in late January, an increase of 23 percent, according to agency figures.

With the approval of the General Assembly and Governor Carcieri, the agency has hired additional staff and brought back retirees to help with the workload.

Bit by bit, there has been progress. For example, since the middle of last month, the agency has been operating its unemployment insurance unit seven days a week. (Calls are answered weekdays; weekends are mainly to help process claims and payments, said Raymond A. Filippone, who oversees the agency's unemployment insurance program.)

Agency officials also said that, as of late January, there was a backlog of nearly 11,000 claims for benefits that were filed online. As of Wednesday, that backlog had fallen to about 6,400.

"We continue to drive down the Internet backlog [by nearly 1,000 claims] a week," and could get back to normal within about six weeks, Powell said.

But the agency is still working on processing online claims that were filed as far back as Jan. 28, Filippone said.

In other words, Costantino said, there is a delay of about 2 ½ months from the time someone files a claim for benefits online to the time that person receives a benefit payment, Costantino said.

"Obviously, waiting six weeks to wait for a [benefit payment] is not reasonable,'' Costantino said. And being put on hold for 77 minutes to reach an agency representative at the call center is not reasonable, either, he said.

In normal times, it might take a number of days to process an online claim, and the average time on hold for the call center might be about 20 minutes, Powell said.

But the surge in unemployment continues to cause problems. People who dial the unemployment insurance call center often get busy signals. Those who get through often wind up on hold before being served.

The agency is accelerating training for newly hired workers, and has taken other steps to deal with the problems, Powell and Filippone said. As a result, "I'm confident in saying the phone [wait] time will go down over the next several weeks," Filippone said.

John E. Landers, chief information officer for the state Division of Information Technology, said his agency is working with the Department of Labor and Training on a plan to streamline online claims so they can be processed automatically, without human intervention. That new process could be implemented in June, he said in a letter to Costantino.

In addition, both agencies are working on a "telephone call-back system." Once a caller reaches the phone center, the caller would have the option to be placed on hold or receive a call back when a representative is available. "We expect this upgrade to be procured and implemented as soon as possible," Landers wrote.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island's employer-funded unemployment insurance trust fund is running out of money. To keep benefits flowing to the unemployed, the agency plans to borrow from the federal government within the next 24 to 48 hours to help replenish the fund, Powell said. (The amount has not been set, but could be about $700,000, she said.) Rhode Island is one of about a dozen states that have borrowed to help boost their unemployment funds.

Someone who is laid off can receive unemployment benefits through the agency for a maximum of 79 weeks, Powell said.

Rhode Island's maximum weekly unemployment benefit is $528, not counting payments for dependents. With dependents, the maximum can reach $660.

The average payment is about $360 a week. Broadly speaking, someone who is unemployed can expect to receive a benefit that is about 60 percent of what that person was earning before being laid off, Filippone said.

The agency also recently began paying an additional $25 in benefits a week as a result of a new federal economic stimulus measure.