On Thursday, U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) released a framework of legislation that would improve the country’s unemployment system.
Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and Crapo, the committee’s ranking member, said the legislation would improve the system’s administration and work to combat fraud while improving access to benefits for eligible workers.
“This bipartisan framework takes crucial steps toward providing states’ unemployment systems with much-needed tools to recoup and prevent fraudulent claims,” Crapo said. “As we saw throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, fraudulent actors are a serious threat and prevent legitimate claimants from receiving timely payments. By building a stronger and more accessible UI system, we can ensure taxpayers are protected and those who need assistance receive it.”
The legislation would extend the statute of limitation for unemployment insurance fraud from 5 years to 10 years, and would allow states to waive overpayment of pandemic unemployment insurance that has not been recovered once the legislation is enacted.
Additionally, the legislation would require states to crossmatch unemployment compensation claims against the National Directory of New Hires and to use systems like the State Information Data Exchanges (SIDES), the Integrity Data Hub (IDH), and the Social Security Administration’s prisoner database to identify accurate claim information and avert potential fraud. The legislation would also provide guidance to employers on using updated online access and new technologies to verify a workers’ access to benefits.
“During the heat of the pandemic in 2020, state unemployment insurance systems routinely struggled to keep up as millions of Americans were laid off or furloughed,” Wyden. “This bipartisan framework would begin to make the UI system more resilient so that it’s up to the challenge during the next recession. The key is understanding that better serving workers in a crisis and preventing fraud are not mutually exclusive. This framework would help states detect and prevent fraud while also ensuring that eligible workers can more easily apply for benefits and quickly receive what they are owed.”