Local officials should go on the offense to protect important initiatives that have benefited all of us. In particular, they can enlist businesses that see the benefits of their own diversity initiatives.
People with criminal records just want to work, and they can be good employees. There’s a lot that governments could do to enable this untapped workforce.
Republican lawmakers and business groups argue that the state’s economy is suffering from too many people collecting unemployment benefits instead of working. But the effort could remove a financial safety net.
With a high influx of COVID-related jobless claims, hackers found it easy to scam state unemployment benefit systems. But tracking down the illegitimate payments is a slow and frustrating process.
The U.S. Department of Labor issued a guidance letter to state unemployment agencies stating they should expand jobless waivers to thousands of people and absolve those who received overpayments due to state error.
The city’s recently appointed Racial Equity Initiative leader was the subject of a criminal investigation regarding substantial unemployment fraud claims that occurred while she headed Ohio’s jobs department.
Seven months after the decision was made, thousands of residents do not yet know that they will be able to keep the overpaid jobless aid, thanks to antiquated technology that continues to hobble the unemployment agency.
The Department of Job and Family Services hired five companies to contract call center workers to better handle the mass of pandemic-related unemployment claims. Some call center workers were initially paid $59 an hour.
An appeals court in Boston will determine if the Maine governor violated an inmate’s 14th Amendment rights when she ordered the Department of Corrections to seize COVID-19-induced unemployment benefits.
Confusion and misinformation have made it difficult to gauge the impact of the omicron variant on the economy and work. Data that tracks unemployment rates since the start of the pandemic provides a rough guide.
Illinois and seven other states want the federal government to reinstate a pause on interest rates for loans used to pay unemployment benefits in the beginning of the pandemic. If left unpaid for a year, Illinois could owe $100 million in interest.
State lawmakers have proposed seven ways to fix the state’s unemployment system and help claimants receive better aid. But some of the proposals aren’t feasible and others could be too expensive.
Labor data suggests that Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision to cut the extra $300 of federal funds from unemployment benefits 10 weeks ahead of the federal deadline had little effect on moving people back into the workforce.
California’s official unemployment rate is 7.5 percent. But a newer method of measuring unemployment reveals a far larger portion of the state is struggling to find full-time employment that pays enough to cover the cost of living.
The Department of Workforce Development has adjusted training and workload, but high demand has led to turnover among judges, significantly delaying the unemployment claims process.
An audit found that between July 2020 and June 2021, 3.3 percent of unemployment payments went to scammers, an increase of 2 percent from previous years, and nonfraud overpayments rose by 20.9 percent.
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