Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) unemployment benefits data is inaccurate, potentially compromising relief for workers without a job, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a government watchdog. This flaw makes it challenging for policymakers "to respond to the crisis at hand," the GAO stated in a report published Nov. 30.
- DOL publishes weekly announcements on unemployment claims in each state and reports the total as the number of individuals claiming benefits nationwide. However, due to backlogs in processing claims and data issues as the pandemic continues, "the number of claims has not been an accurate estimate of the number of individuals claiming benefits," the report said. The CARES Act created three federally funded temporary programs for unemployment insurance (UI) — Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.
- DOL agreed with GAO's recommendation to revise weekly announcements to state that "the numbers it reports for weeks of unemployment claimed do not accurately estimate the number of unique individuals claiming benefits," according to the report. However, the agency only "partially agreed" with the recommendation to find options to report the actual number of distinct individuals claiming benefits, GAO said.
Dive Insight:
The economy has improved since July, but many individuals temporarily or permanently laid off remained unemployed in October, according to GAO. Employment remains 10 million jobs below its February level, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Nov. 6.
"GAO continues to provide policymakers with a snapshot in real time of the federal government's efforts to address the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic," Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO said in a statement. "We are at a critical time in this pandemic."
During single reporting periods, state backlogs in processing unemployment claims often resulted in individuals submitting claims for multiple weeks of retroactive benefits; and as DOL used claim counts to represent the number of individuals, many are counted more than once in the agency's estimate, according to GAO. In addition, DOL has "inaccurately characterized changes in claims numbers from week to week, in large part because of inconsistency in the group of states reporting Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) data each period," GAO said. It's necessary for DOL to provide reliable data on both the number of new claimants each week and the number of claimants who continue to rely on UI benefits, GAO said.
Those eligible for PUA included unemployed or partially unemployed business owners, self-employed workers and independent contractors not eligible for traditional UI. The PUA benefit expires Dec. 26.