In September 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, our unemployment rate was 7.9% and there were only 123 million full-time employees in the U.S. workforce. Unemployment rates do not include the number of people who have stopped looking for work or those who are underemployed. If these people were included, our actual unemployment rate would be nearly double what it is actually reported to be. Unemployment insurance was a major element of our government’s response to the economic dislocation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic also showed this system cannot accommodate a large influx of applicants without acquiring a huge backlog of unemployed people unable to get paid. During this crisis, many of these unhappy applicants waited three months or more to receive benefits. Fortunately, today’s unemployment is about 3.7%, a rate unseen since the Nixon Administration. Advocates say we need to upgrade state unemployment insurance systems to be able to process a surge in benefit claims in a timely manner should we have another crisis or an economic recession.

Proposed Legislation: Reintroduction of S.490 - Unemployment Insurance Technology Modernization Act of 2021
Prospective Sponsor: Sen. Ron Wyden (OR)