An ancient computer language is slowing America’s giant stimulus

The Common Business Oriented Language emerged at the end of the 1950s, before computer science was taught at universities. — trendingtopics/VisualHunt.com/CC BY

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed ageing, inflexible computer systems at the heart of the US economy – and a shortage of experts to fix the problem. This is slowing the government’s effort to get billions of dollars in stimulus checks to millions of newly unemployed citizens.

The US$2.2tril (RM9.51tril) CARES Act passed in late March includes a US$600 (RM2,594) weekly increase in unemployment benefits. That money won’t reach anyone until state agencies update technology systems to reflect the law and handle the flood of new applications.