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 article highlights how state unemployment insurance (UI) agencies are leveraging data to modernize systems and enhance access for unemployed workers.
This report discusses the financial resilience strategies families used to manage gaps before benefits arrived, in addition to providing recommendations for how benefits can be better designed in the future to fit the financial lives of lower-income households.
This document, submitted in response to Executive Order 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities, summarizes key aspects of DOL’s principles and approach to advancing equity. One of the five areas outlined includes administering and improving the federal-state Unemployment Insurance systems.
Report by the Aspen Institute discussing Benefits21, a multi-stakeholder, multi-faceted initiative to integrate and modernize benefits systems. This paper provides an overview of Benefits21, along with a discussion of the shortcomings of current public and private benefit systems.
This section of the Building Resilience plan outlines strategies to expand access to unemployment insurance (UI) for underserved populations and improve benefit adequacy through system reform, outreach, and data-driven equity efforts.
This section of the Building Resilience plan outlines comprehensive strategies to help states prevent, detect, and recover unemployment insurance (UI) fraud while protecting legitimate claimants.
Errors in administrative processes are costly and burdensome for clients but are understudied. Using U.S. Unemployment Insurance data, this study finds that while automation improves accuracy in simpler programs, it can increase errors in more complex ones.
Through the interviews, ULP sought to capture details of claimant experience, see how and why system failures occurred, and make recommendations for reform now—before another financial or public health crisis suddenly causes state unemployment rates to spike.
The California Employment Development Department (CA EDD) launched the EDDNext initiative to modernize benefit delivery, focusing on user-centric procurement for a new identity verification system.
