As unemployment surged during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, some people in the United States needed face-to-face help rather than another attempt at an online claim. A Reuters photograph records people lining up outside a career center before it opened to seek assistance with unemployment-benefit applications.
What distinguishes this queue is that people were not waiting for the payment itself. They were waiting for human help to complete a difficult administrative process. Even when the system moved online, problems that could not be resolved on a screen returned applicants to office hours and created a physical line on the pavement before opening.