Labor Department Published 'Flawed Estimates' of Weekly Jobless Claims, Watchdog Says
November 30 2020 - 11:37AM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Kiernan and Sarah Chaney
WASHINGTON -- The nation's system for providing unemployment
benefits to jobless workers has consistently produced inaccurate
data and lower-than-appropriate payouts to some workers amid the
Covid-19 pandemic, a government watchdog said Monday.
The Labor Department's weekly reports on jobless claims have
published "flawed estimates of the number of individuals receiving
benefits each week throughout the pandemic," the Government
Accountability Office said in a periodic report.
In addition, a program created by Congress to provide jobless
benefits to workers who are normally not eligible for them has
underpaid recipients in most states. As a result, the average
weekly payout under the what is called the Pandemic Unemployment
Assistance program, which is available to gig-economy workers and
the self-employed, is below the poverty line in 70% of states that
reported data.
"The majority of states have been paying PUA claimants the
minimum allowable benefit instead of the amount they are eligible
for based on prior earnings," the GAO said.
The GAO report comes as two key coronavirus-relief programs --
the PUA and an extended availability of regular
unemployment-insurance to 39 weeks from the usual 26 -- are set to
expire at the end of December. Negotiations between Democrats,
Republicans and the White House over another round of coronavirus
relief have been stalled for months.
Write to Paul Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com and Sarah Chaney
at sarah.chaney@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 30, 2020 11:22 ET (16:22 GMT)
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