June 18, 2024
Answering Key Questions About Unemployment Insurance Reforms
Chairman LaHood, Ranking Member Davis, and members of the Work and Welfare Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony on potential improvements to the nation’s unemployment insurance (UI) system to better support American workers, businesses, and taxpayers. My name is Matt Weidinger, and I am a Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the…
April 29, 2024
New “Scorecard” Report Promotes Better Use of Data to Prevent Unemployment Fraud
Criminals inflicted unprecedented fraud on taxpayer benefits during the pandemic, and some of the most abused programs were those that provided temporary federal unemployment benefits. As we documented in a January 2024 report (Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions), official government tallies of improper payments and fraud stretch toward $200 billion, while unofficial estimates…
April 29, 2024
Measuring What Matters: Context and Recommendations to Improve Reporting on Unemployment Insurance
Key Points Read the PDF.
February 29, 2024
Recalling Pandemic Lessons on “Self-Certifying” Eligibility
Sometimes what is left unmentioned can be far more important than what is said. A good example is obscure guidance issued last week by the US Department of Labor (DOL) encouraging workforce programs to allow beneficiaries to self-certify their eligibility. That guidance directly affects a handful of programs with limited funding that offer a variety of employment-related…
January 29, 2024
Pandemic Unemployment Fraud in Context: Causes, Costs, and Solutions
Key Points Read the PDF.
November 20, 2023
The Next Time States Are “Swimming in Money” Make Them Repay Their Federal Loans
The pandemic was full of firsts, including the first time states received hundreds of billions of federal dollars they could use to shore up their depleted state unemployment insurance (UI) programs. The March 2020 CARES Act provided $150 billion in a flexible “Coronavirus Relief Fund,” whose potential uses included covering states’ “unemployment insurance costs.” Then the March 2021 American…
September 29, 2023
Solutions to Reduce Government Improper Payments Involving Unemployment Benefits
OverviewThe coronavirus pandemic tested the nation’s unemployment benefits system more than any prior recession. Not only did far more individuals file claims for weekly benefits than ever before, but lockdowns and mass layoffs concentrated those record claims starting in March 2020, creating an unprecedented surge in demand for benefits that quickly rose to an apparent…
September 5, 2023
Audit Finds California Continues to Mismanage Unemployment Benefits
A scathing report released by the California State Auditor on August 24 finds that the state’s Economic Development Department (EDD) continues to mismanage the unemployment insurance (UI) program, resulting in “a substantial risk of serious detriment to the State and its residents.” The California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which oversees EDD, was formerly led by Julie…
September 1, 2023
Despite Staggering Improper Payments, New Labor Department Report Calls for Reviving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
As America prepares to celebrate Labor Day, it’s timely to wonder what the US Department of Labor (DOL) has been up to. One noteworthy recent action was DOL’s August 21 release of a report on improper payments made by the troubled Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. PUA was a temporary federal program in 2020 and 2021, which…
August 23, 2023
Labor Department Report Finds Pandemic Unemployment Program Had a Staggering 36 Percent Improper Payment Rate
On August 21, the US Department of Labor (DOL) released its long-awaited “improper payment report” on the troubled Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. PUA was an unprecedented federal unemployment benefit program that operated from early 2020 through September 2021. Prior reports from the DOL Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office suggested that PUA was subject to historic, but previously unconfirmed, levels…