According to Melissa DeRosa, secretary to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the New York Department of Labor has paid about a sum total of $7.4 billion to unemployment claims to around 1.7 million residents following the first seven weeks of COVID-19 crisis. 

In an interview, De Rosa said, “When people say, ‘You’ve experienced these past crises, why weren’t you ready for this one?’ We were ready for this one, we’ve handled six times that in the first seven weeks of this crisis, we’ve processed 1.8 million claims,” DeRosa said.