Final Report Issued by the National Academy of Social Insurance Unemployment Insurance Task Force
July 16 2024 - 11:50AM
The National Academy of Social Insurance has released a
groundbreaking bipartisan report on Unemployment
Insurance (UI) modernization, following several years of
deliberations by its Unemployment Insurance Task
Force. On
Wednesday, July 17th, at 12:30 pm
ET, the Academy will host a virtual event, featuring a
distinguished panel of experts, discussing the Task Force’s final
report.
“Unemployment Insurance (UI) is a critical part of
America's social insurance fabric—and an essential part of the
nation's economic toolkit,” said Michele Evermore, the Task Force’s
Principal Investigator and one of the nation’s foremost UI experts.
“Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed major cracks in America's
UI system that it’s critical for policymakers to acknowledge and
address so that we are prepared for future economic downturns.”
The Task Force, comprised of 24 leading UI
experts from across the political spectrum, began its work in
late 2020 in the midst of the chaos that the COVID-19 pandemic
wreaked on our nation’s Unemployment Insurance system to find
solutions to build a more stable system that would not be
susceptible to the myriad failures experienced during the pandemic.
The purpose of this Task Force was to review and analyze issues
that the UI system has faced both historically and during the
pandemic, as well as potential policy solutions, how those
solutions might work, and might be perceived.
“Despite historic levels of political polarization
in the U.S., it is encouraging to see such a diverse group of UI
experts find so much common ground on this critical issue,” said
Academy CEO Rebecca Vallas.
The most critical area of agreement is that the
federal-state UI system was flawed before the pandemic and that the
stress of paying historic levels of claims under both regular and
huge new programs strained UI systems to the point of breaking.
While the economy is currently healthy, policymakers and states
have an opportunity to take steps now to prepare for the next
downturn, or the UI system might not be able to adequately and
efficiently perform the critical countercyclical stabilization that
it has done for nearly nine decades.
The Academy’s virtual event will be moderated by
the Task Force’s Principal Investigator, Michele Evermore, with a
panel featuring: Task Force Co-Chairs Till Von
Wachter, California Policy Lab, University of
California, Los Angeles; Julia Simon-Mishel, Philadelphia
Legal Assistance; Matt Weidinger, American Enterprise
Institute, and Task Force member; and Indivar Dutta-Gupta,
Member of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Social
Insurance. The event will also feature remarks from Andrew
Stettner, Director of UI Modernization at the Department of Labor’s
Employment and Training Administration.
The panel will discuss the report’s key findings,
including lessons learned from the pandemic from the perspectives
of claimants, employers, and government systems---as well as policy
options identified by the Task Force, ranging from upgrading
outdated technology and administrative systems to policy questions
about funding, financing, eligibility and replacement of lost
wages.
As bipartisan legislation has been recently
introduced in the U.S. Senate, and the House Committee on Ways and
Means has recently held hearings to find common ground on how to
fix these systems, the Task Force’s report will provide timely
context and insights to Congress and state policymakers, as they
consider ways to improve the nation’s UI system to better prepare
for future economic downturns.
Click here to read the Task
Force’s report.
Click here to RSVP for the event.
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The National Academy of Social Insurance is a
non-profit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation’s
leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to advance
solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public
understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic
security.
Tom Novotny
National Academy of Social Insurance
202-243-7281
tnovotny@nasi.org