Ray Marchiori, acting director of the Illinois Department of Employment Security, testifies before the Legislative Audit Commission on Nov. 7, 2023, about the agency’s handling of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Jerry Nowicki / Capitol News Illinois)

The upgrade came from Fitch Ratings, the last remaining holdout of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies to advance the state’s status to “A” grade. Collectively, Fitch, S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have given the state nine credit upgrades since 2021.

(kaboompics / Pixabay)

The outage means people cannot file for unemployment and 29,000 of the 86,000 claimants who are already certified will see their payments delayed.