Back in the early days of the pandemic, the United States’ patchwork of state-run unemployment systems got a real-world stress test — and didn’t do very well. Antiquated computer systems crashed, people couldn’t get through by phone to ask questions or get information about their applications and there were massive processing delays in many states.
Some states are still dealing with claims and appeals backlogs from 2020 and 2021, when federal pandemic unemployment programs were in place that vastly expanded eligibility and weekly benefits.
The strong job market over the past year, with low unemployment and few layoffs, has given state systems something of a respite from dealing with new claims, which fell to an all-time low of 166,000 in March. But with the economy slowing and layoffs rising, first-time jobless claims have expanded by more than 50% since early spring — to 260,000 in the week that ended Saturday. And the Federal Reserve is predicting that the unemployment rate will rise soon too.
So, how ready is the economy for a further increase in unemployment claims?
There is some good news for unemployment insurance, or UI, systems across the country, said Andrew Stettner, director of workforce policy at the Century Foundation.
“The Biden administration, they’ve tried to go at low-hanging fruit,” he said, “trying to identify the business processes that slowed things down, try[ing] to get the states to fix them.”
He said some states have launched tech overhauls, but...
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