The UI Technology Coordinating Coalition hosted a virtual conversation on April 13, 2023 focused on recent developments in unemployment insurance (UI) modernization efforts with guests from the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of UI Modernization and the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and its induced recession underscored the crucial importance of unemployment insurance (UI) to workers, and to the stability of the American economy. Temporary federal expansions of unemployment systems during the pandemic showed how they can quickly be scaled to increase benefit levels and to include categories of workers who were not previously eligible, such as the self-employed, caregivers, and low-wage workers. And, states showed that separate programs can be set up to provide similar benefits to workers who are explicitly excluded from unemployment insurance—in particular immigrants who do not have a documented immigration status.
This report, jointly authored by The Century Foundation, the National Employment Law Project, and Philadelphia Legal Assistance, presents the findings of an intensive study of state efforts to modernize their unemployment insurance (UI) benefit systems. This is the first report to detail how UI modernization has altered the customer experience. It offers lessons drawn from state modernization efforts and recommends user-friendly design and implementation methods to help states succeed in future projects.
