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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…
August 14, 2023
Tracking Plans to Make Pandemic Benefit Expansions Permanent
In 2008, former White House Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel famously said what has come to be known as Rahm’s rule: “You never want a serious crisis to go to…
May 11, 2023
The House Acts to Recover More Pandemic Unemployment Fraud
FacebookTwitterLinkedIn This week, the House is considering Republican-authored legislation (H.R. 1163, the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act) designed to promote more recovery of fraudulent unemployment checks paid during the pandemic,…
May 2, 2023
In Next Recession, Don’t Let Uncle Sam Be Uncle Sucker Again
Following recent bank failures, expectations for a recession have revived. If unemployment rises significantly, Congress will likely re-open its stimulus policy playbook — including by extending unemployment benefits. Yet given an increased…
December 9, 2022
“Automatic Stimulus”: How It Would Have Increased the Record Unemployment Benefits Paid During the Great Recession and Pandemic
Key Points During the pandemic, a series of temporary federal programs that operated from March 2020 until September 2021 provided record unemployment benefit expansions. While those temporary programs followed the…
September 21, 2022
Lessons from the Unprecedented Fraud and Abuse of the Unemployment Benefits System During the Pandemic
…administration of the Unemployment Insurance system. My name is Matt Weidinger, and I am a senior fellow and Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute. I previously…