Following up on efforts that began in May of this year, the General Services Administration (GSA) and Department of Labor (DoL) have expanded their partnership to now offer all states the opportunity to use Login.gov to help improve access, decrease fraud, and increase security in the delivery of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits.

The Labor Department (DoL) estimated this week that the overpayment rate for its Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program reached 17 percent between March 2020 and September 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the nation.

The Department of Labor (DoL) is rolling out a new plan to deploy its remaining unemployment insurance (UI) modernization funding to strengthen state UI systems and prevent fraud after Congress slashed the program’s funding in June.

The Department of Labor (DoL) announced new IT modernization plans this week that aim to improve the unemployment insurance (UI) programs launched as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The Inspector General (IG) at the Department of Labor is warning in a new report about serious equity and security concerns with the use of facial recognition software in unemployment insurance (UI) programs, and says that those concerns need to be addressed immediately.

The state of Washington’s Department of Labor (DoL) confirmed that it detected “suspicious activity” during the week of Jan. 24 indicating a cyberattack targeting the state’s professional and occupational license data.

Now that the Federal government, via the Department of Labor (DoL), has signed up to put $2 billion of stimulus-related funding into shoring up beleaguered state unemployment insurance (UI) systems overpowered by the jobless claim surge due to coronavirus pandemic, Federal and state officials discussed how those efforts will roll out during a panel discussion at MeriTalk’s State Tech Vision virtual program on September 15.

During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, state unemployment insurance (UI) systems have been stressed to their limits, and have been used to help nearly 53 million workers nationwide.

The Department of Labor (DOL) – and numerous state governments that the agency assists – struggled during the coronavirus pandemic to ramp up unemployment insurance (UI) programs to meet sharp increases in demand. Some of the principal culprits, according to DOL’s inspector general (IG), were legacy systems, insufficient staffing resources to manage increased unemployment claims, and unclear and untimely Employment and Training Administration (ETA) guidance.

Federal lawmakers in both the House and Senate have included an additional $2 billion for the Department of Labor (DoL) to distribute to help states upgrade unemployment insurance (UI) infrastructure. The funding was included in both the version of the American Rescue Act that passed the House on Feb. 27 and a draft of the Senate companion bill MeriTalk has obtained.