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The huge sums of cash Congress allocated for pandemic unemployment assistance went a long way toward staving off an economic collapse during the worst days of the crisis. But the huge surge in claims through state unemployment agencies also highlighted weaknesses in the system — weaknesses the Labor Department is now trying to help states fix. Michele Evermore is senior policy adviser on unemployment insurance at the Labor Department. She talked with Federal Drive with Tom Temin about some of the efforts now underway, with the help of about $2 billion in grants under the American Rescue Plan.
Interview transcript:
Jared Serbu: I certainly want to spend the bulk of our conversation today talking about some of the modernizations and improvements that you all are making to UI. But I thought you could start us out with just a little bit of discussion on what the challenges the pandemic exposed really were. I mean, were they known issues that were just kind of highlighted by all the extra things that were happening during the pandemic, or were there new issues that surfaced?
Michele Evermore: It’s really a combination of both. So prior to the pandemic, I had actually written a paper saying...
Read Full Story: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2021/08/labor-dept-trying-to-help-states-fix-pandemic-unemployment-claims-crunch/
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