WEBINAR: How states can improve UI eligibility verification
On September 30, 2025, the Niskanen Center hosted a virtual panel to discuss how state agencies evaluate unemployment insurance benefit claims and explore promising administrative improvements–including Separation Certificates.
In 2024, state Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs reported a collective 15.9 percent improper payment rate–$6 billion in total. A key reason: agencies are often unable to verify eligibility before benefits are issued.
A recent report from Will Raderman and Josh McCabe argues that adopting a Separation Certificate–a standardized form submitted by the employer at the time of job separation– would give UI agencies the information they need upfront, rather than waiting for workers to submit their claims verifying the reason for the job separation. Doing so would reduce errors, cut costs, and streamline benefits for workers.
Panelists:
- Robert Asaro-Angelo, Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development
- Michele Evermore, Senior Fellow, National Academy of Social Insurance.
- Will Raderman, Employment Policy Analyst, Niskanen Center
Moderator:
- Josh McCabe, Director of Social Policy, Niskanen Center
Transcript
Josh McCabe: Welcome, everybody. We’ll get started in about a minute, as people come in. Thanks for joining us.
All right. Welcome, everybody, for today’s webinar on ways to modernize unemployment insurance, and thinking about ways that we can improve verification methods. My name is Josh McCabe, I’m the director of social policy at the Niskanen Center. At the Niskanen Center, our vision is one where social policies work with markets to provide the best possible outcomes for workers and families. On the supply side, we envision policies that foster competition, innovation, and abundance in healthcare and housing. And on the demand side, we envision policies that protect workers from economic shocks, and support stable and thriving families. And as everyone here knows, that unemployment insurance is one of those crucial programs, but it’s far from a perfect program. I think last year, there was about $6 billion in improper payments, so we constantly need to look for ways to improve the process, to make sure that eligible applicants get the benefits that they need, and that they deserve, while also safeguarding taxpayer dollars.
Our focus today, will be on recent innovations, and verifying all the relevant information needed to process these really important benefits. We need lessons from everywhere, from Canada to New Jersey, and everywhere in between. And the idea we’re going to focus on is this idea of a record of employment, separation certificate. It goes by lots of different names, but it’s a really innovative trend that we’re going to talk about internationally and stateside. So for today’s conversation, we’re going to have about 45 minutes of conversation with our panelists, about 15 for Q&A. So just so you know, I’ll be monitoring the Q&A in the chat, so you can put questions in there, and I’ll have those ready from when we open that up.
Now, I’d like to introduce each of our esteemed panelists. We’ll start with Robert Asaro-Angelo, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Michele Evermore, senior fellow with the National Academy of Social Insurance. And Will Raderman, employment policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, my colleague, and co-author of our new report, Separation Anxiety: Reducing Improper Payments and Unemployment Insurance with a Separation Certificate. We got to find a way to shorten that. So we’ll start with Will. So Will, you’ve done a whole lot of work on some of the issues facing the unemployment system nationally, can you talk about what are the big issues that concern you and brought you to write up this report?
Will Raderman: Yeah. So, I think there’s a couple key problems that were very prominent, especially during the pandemic, that I think have stood out to a whole bunch of people. But one is on the fraud side, which there’s an estimated 100 to $135 billion worth of fraud, according to the GAO. And then there’s issues with paying benefits in a timely manner, where even now, there’s issues with processing benefit claims within three weeks, which is the federal standard that states are striving to meet. And where states, broadly speaking, are still having problems today meeting those kinds of metrics, there are both state-specific kinds of dynamics at play. But at the federal level, I think there’s opportunities to actually revamp, or reform different processes, or the way that they agencies are financed themselves, in order to help states be in a better position to have successful programs.
And when you look at the report that we focused on, it was on separation information. So, when states are actually needing to evaluate claims, what do the agencies actually have on hand when a worker submits that benefit claim? And there’s generally not that separation information. So why did someone leave a job in the first place? Is it a qualifying or disqualifying reason? And agencies then need to ask that former employer why exactly they left that job in the first place. And when you look at why different payment errors are happening today, about 20%, give or take a few percentage points, is due to untimely or inadequate separation information. And so our focus today, is very much on how can we cut out that source of error moving forward, and what are states doing today that is moving in the right direction.
Josh McCabe: Yeah. Can you walk us through some of the ways that states are able to verify the information that they need? And beyond reason for separation, what are the other pieces of information that states need to process these claims?
Will Raderman: Yeah. So there’s both monetary and non-monetary information that is needed to determine if someone is eligible for benefits. The monetary information is generally collected through quarterly wage records, which employers must submit every three months, that includes wages, the worker’s name, the employer’s name, very basic information. But that data is on hand when needing to evaluate if someone has earned enough wages in the base period in order to qualify. Which, as a brief definition, base period is usually the first four of the last most recent five completed calendar quarters, and then a lot of states have the alternative base period, which is the most four recently completed calendar quarters. But enough wages need to have been earned in that base period in order to qualify, but that is separate from when claimants are actually submitting their claims and looking for cash assistance, where each time the claim is submitted, the agency, for the most part, needs to then reach back out to the employer to see why that unemployment event happened in the first place.
And so they might have all of the wage information they need to determine the monetary component, but that non-monetary, more qualitative set of details, they need to reach back out for. And for the most part, states wait until after claims are submitted to collect that piece of information, and our focus is on is it possible for states to be more proactive about collecting that detail moving forward?
Josh McCabe: Yeah, Will, so I remember a news magazine once ran a contest for the most boring headline possible, and I think the winner was something like “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.” But our report, we found a worthwhile Canadian initiative, can you tell us more about it and why you think the US can fruitfully adopt some of those provisions to improve program integrity here?
Will Raderman: Yeah. So, Canada has what’s called a record of employment there. In our report, we recommend a separation certificate, but in Canada, they’ve got a record of employment, which how it works is each time there’s a separation event that occurs, the employer will submit this record of employment, which includes wage information, separation information, other key details to the time for that worker at that employer, but all of that is included on a document and submitted to the unemployment agency there. And when the worker then goes and claims unemployment benefits, the agency has a lot of this valuable information on hand to more efficiently make that claim evaluation and determination, so that the worker is not necessarily needing to wait quite as long, given that the agency has those key details.
And then the agency itself can be less concerned about making improper payments, or different kinds of errors, because rather than needing to rush and ask for additional information from employers, they often have those key details already on hand. And when you look at the improper payment rate in Canada versus the US as a whole, their improper payment rate is about 10 percentage points lower than it is in the US. So we do feel that that is the right direction to move in order to improve program accuracy and timeliness.
Josh McCabe: Great, thank you. So Michele, we looked at a lot of Canadian stuff, but you worked at the Department of Labor during the pandemic, you spent a lot of time since then writing about efforts to protect against fraud and improper payments. Does some of what Will discussed about the promise of these separation certificates jive with that experience?
Michele Evermore: Yeah, absolutely. The way we look at improper payments in the United States, is we use a term, program integrity, which is a term I just love. Integrity, to me, means getting the right benefit to the right person on time, and I think that the Canadian-style wage record would definitely jive with that aim. I would also want to call to authority here, that this is something also that Steve Wadner, who’s spent a lot of time thinking about how best to deliver unemployment insurance benefits, includes in his book. Yeah, there it is. Everybody’s got it on their desk. And frankly, it has always struck me as odd that we don’t have mandatory disclosures to claimants and unemployment insurance like we do with wage and hour notifications, workplace safety notifications. And I want to take a moment today, to say this is a perfect day to talk about how the government has standard forms for its employees, and for any federal workers who are on this call, this would be a good time to print out your SF-8 and SF-50, so that you have that ready to bring in to the unemployment insurance office.
Early in the pandemic, I actually made the recommendation that employers provide information to state agencies about their workers that were laid off. And some states did ask employers to provide that information, which to be honest, was helpful in some instances but not others. The problem is that this kind of thing is something states should be thinking about now. They need to work it out in advance. Employers need to be providing the right information, and in the right way, and the agency has to be set up to receive that information, and that’s not something you can build in the middle of a crisis. So I think right now is a really good time to be thinking about this particular topic.
Josh McCabe: Yeah. No, I’m glad you pointed, it’s sort of two sides to the same coin. We want to make it more accessible for workers who really need this. We want to let UI agencies do what they do best. But one concern we sometimes hear is that new reporting requirements can create new burdens for employers, especially multi-state employers, in some cases. Can you talk about SIDES, and some of these other platforms that can help provide a uniform experience, an easy experience for employers to do their part in this process without being burdensome?
Michele Evermore: Sure. SIDES stands for State Information Data Exchange System. It’s offered by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies in partnership with the US Department of Labor, to empower workforce development. I pulled that from the website. I know I’m not getting that wrong. So this is a super secure way for states to communicate with employers to help determine eligibility. And in unemployment insurance, there’s two factors to determining eligibility, two main buckets, monetary and non-monetary eligibility. Monetary eligibility is did I earn enough money to get unemployment? If so, how much unemployment am I eligible for? And then there are non-monetary reasons associated with the separation reasons, and things like that. And SIDES helps confirm with employers quickly, both monetary and non-monetary issues. And I’ve heard only good things about SIDES, and would definitely encourage employers that aren’t participating on this call to take a look at SIDES.
Josh McCabe: Yeah. So, thinking this post-pandemic moment, maybe today is not the best way to think about it, but you had mentioned trying to implement these in a flurry, in the middle of everything going on in 2021, is hard. We always talk about the best time to repair your roof, it’s when it’s not raining, so what should give state UI agencies a confidence about adopting some sort of notice certificate now?
Michele Evermore: I think in a way, the question answers itself. States should be thinking about what’s going to happen during the next crisis, and maybe what could be done to them, right? Sometimes legislatures think of things without necessarily running it by their state agencies, maybe consider what are all the things that we can be doing right now, so that when there’s a crisis, we already have it up and running.
This is actually another place where it’s really important for claimants as well, because making sure accurate benefits get to claimants in a flurry is really important, and we saw the result of that not happening during the pandemic. People made so many innocent mistakes in their applications, and then we got toward the end of the pandemic, and realized there were these mountains of overpayments that states had to then figure out how to deal with. And when it’s an innocent mistake because a question was answered differently in two places, that’s just really a huge burden for claimants. It’s bad press for the state. It makes people not want to apply for unemployment insurance again, when they need it. So being able to think ahead, and think of all the ways that we can prevent errors when there’s a crisis, is really critical.
Josh McCabe: Thank you. So we know one state’s been doing that, and Will is a New Yorker and I am a Massachusetts person, so we were sad to hear it was New Jersey. But we’re excited to hear more from the Commissioner on how did New Jersey’s law come to be, what’s the rollout look like, and what is the agency hoping to accomplish?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Thanks, and thanks for having me. I always love learning from all three of you. And thank you, Michele, for always being a great voice on behalf of labor commissioners everywhere during the crisis before you even joined USDOL. A couple things. One, it did come about in the middle of the crisis, so your comment about, I think Michele said that legislators don’t always involve state agencies, this was definitely one of those cases. But this part of it that came out of it, I think, was positive overall for workers, for sure.
It was basically, I think the bill was dropped in early 2022, so still right in the heart of the UI mess, and their offices being overwhelmed by dozens or hundreds of calls a day, and them looking for answers to how to make the process quicker. And certainly, one of the things they heard a lot from us as well, is about what Will talked about, the improper payment rate. A lot of the errors and delays being because we didn’t have the right information from employers, or the workers themselves didn’t have the information, so that was included in a part of a very large bill, S-2357, that had a lot of changes for the UI system. There wasn’t a lot of debate on it, quite frankly. We weren’t very involved in the draft of it, if at all. USDOL, maybe Michele was there at that point, gave us some things about conformance, the legislature did take those changes. But we heard very little from the business community about it. There was, I don’t think, any testimony about it, so they went along as well.
But of course, once it was passed and signed, and we had to put regs out about how it was going to work, everyone was blaming us for all the burden it was going to impact on business. That being said, we have not rolled out. We’re looking at hopefully, next month to finally roll this out to employers in the state, and we’re very excited about the prospects of that. By the way, I mean the impact it’s going to have on claimants is obvious, right? I mean, we’re going to have this information. So in New Jersey, when you apply, we basically populate your employers in the base period, how much, what your earnings were from them, and for you to confirm, and now we’re going to be able to populate the reason for separation. Just to be clear, in New Jersey, we’re getting this notice for every employee who separated for any reason, regardless of whether or not they’re going to file a UI claim. So that is going to be a huge trove of data for us, as a state, not just in the UI realm.
But important to that UI realm, because we’re going to able to reach out to every separated worker now, and say, “Hey, you might be able to offer these benefits.” I’m always happy that us and Massachusetts are always fighting for the top number in recipientcy rate. I’m pretty sure once this gets implemented, we’re going to be at the top spot forever, until somebody else comes along and does this in their state. I’m really excited about that. But luckily, we now have the infrastructure in New Jersey to put this kind of new work on top of. We could not have done this during COVID or pre-COVID, but because of the work that we’ve done to modernize our system since COVID, it has allowed these kind of flexible changes to happen. And just major kudos to our in-house UI staff and our IT staff to make this happen.
We know that everything is always a burden for employers obviously, but we want to make sure this is as easy as possible, and want to make sure that they know about how this is going to benefit them as well, right? So it’ll be less back and forth hopefully, with them once a claim is filed. And I firmly believe in New Jersey, that our unemployment system, when it’s strong, our economy is strong, our workers are strong, and it gives them a better safety net. Obviously, during the time, it lets them wait for a higher salary, which benefits every single person in the state. So we’re excited about it, for sure, and we know it’s going to be a slow ramp up once this gets out there. It’s not going to be perfect, we know that. That’s how things go. But we are very excited about the potential to make our claims processing easier. And in my mind, next steps are enhanced wage records across the board also, which will improve things even further.
Josh McCabe: Can you say a bit more about the… You’re sort of taking the time to build it up, a lot of outreach, can you say more about what that outreach process has looked like so far?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Yeah. It’s been sort of multifaceted. We had a regulatory deadline, that when the bill submitted, to post regs about it. We basically said the regs are wait until we get noticed, until we get this up and running. So people were put at ease for a little bit, but folks, now, it’s coming. We have about 280,000 employers in New Jersey. We have about emails for a little over half of them at this point, so this is all going to be digital. We have been communicating with them as much as we can, but like with any new labor law, you’re never going to be able to reach every single employer, right? So we’re just trying. But one of the tools we’ve used is in New Jersey, until a few months ago, you got your contribution rates via hard copy mail. We ended those notices, so when people call up to figure out what they need to pay, we make sure they set up an online account, that’s what will be used for them to post separation information.
And it’s going to be a lot of outreach. We’ve done great work, I think, in this department over the past many years, talking to employers, listening to employers, because we know that our claimants processing in life will be easier with the better information we have from employers. And also in New Jersey, we’re one of the few states, us, Pennsylvania, maybe Alaska, where the workers pay in, so I do think that we have more responsibility to make… We hear that from legislators all the time, we have more responsibility to make this as smooth a process as possible for our workers who are paying into the system for this administrative stuff.
Josh McCabe: So it’s still early, the rollout is in process, but so far, what do you think are the most important lessons for other states who are considering something like this, what aspects are important?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: A lot of good things can come out of a crisis if you do them right, and we’ve really used the really traumatic experience of our legislative staff and legislators during that time. Obviously, I only tell you about the trauma that we went through as a department, but they did as well, and they were our partners in that. So a lot of this stuff, when we talk about these positive changes for our claimants, where in the past, it might’ve been, “Oh, it’s going to be too hard for business, or a burden,” they get it. They realize that all these little steps we’re taking are going to make the lives of their constituents easier, and it’s going to reduce the calls to their office, and reduce complaints about delays.
So I think we’ve really used that to better the lives of our claimants. Not only was that big bill passed during COVID, we had a big UI improvement bill passed last year. It went through legislature in a bipartisan manner, that it contained a lot of claimant-friendly changes, a lot of administrative changes to make the process easier. We also had a bill passed that provides permanent funding for UI administrative purposes in New Jersey, which all goes to all this work we’re doing here. So everything that we’re doing on outreach, on claims processing, on anti-fraud measures, that will always be safe in my mind, no matter what’s going on at the federal level, because we have now, a consistent stream of funding in New Jersey, which we’re really proud of. And quite frankly, I don’t think it ever would’ve happened without the trauma of COVID.
Josh McCabe: Thank you. I want to open up to the panel with a few extra questions. So one of the things we often think about is UI program integrity, is it all about technology? Are there technical constraints? Are there opportunities? So what are the technical aspects, or the technology aspects that either concern you or excite you right now? Open to anyone.
Robert Asaro-Angelo: I feel like I just talked a bunch, but I’ll just go real quick. I mean, I think all this stuff is fantastic, but I always do say that technology can only do so much. And I’m sorry, Michele has heard me this a million times, the reason why it’s been so hard to have modernized UI systems, or any kind of great technology in UI, is because the policies around it are so confusing, sometimes at odds with each other. And the idea, and I give USDOL a huge credit, we were a pilot state with them on UI mod, and we are happy about our open-source product, that other states can take from, but I know the reality of the situation, that there’s 50 different systems because there’s 50 different states, 50 different laws. So I think that’s an inherent problem still, and I give kudos to the current USDOL administration for trying to have, talking about a pilot of another kind of front door that we can all use.
So I think technology is obviously a huge help, but it’s got to be done with… If you could marry that with policy changes like we did with the improvement bill we talked about last year, that really goes a long way. And I think it’s very important not to get down a rabbit hole of procurement reform, but whenever you can do these projects in the agile method, as opposed to a big bang waterfall procurement, you’re going to be better off for everybody. And even this thing we’re going to be launching next month, that’s going to integrate into modernized system, and I’m sure it’s going to be changing probably 10 times before the next year, of fixes we’re going to need to make along the way, without having to go and get change orders, without having to go find a new vendor, or change a statement of work. Having that flexibility in your process is always going to benefit those you serve, no matter what.
Michele Evermore: I think some of the fraud technology questions are not answered. I’m in the middle of a year-long project of actually just trying to catalog what states are using which technology, but I will say the granddaddy of all, the linchpin for integrity, is really the fact that the regular unemployment insurance program is one where when you become employed, the person who caused you to become unemployed has to verify that not only did you work for them, but you no longer work for them for a qualifying reason, even though it will increase their unemployment insurance taxes. I mean, that’s a pretty good bar. So, if you have a really good way of verifying that with the employer, that’s probably going to be your best fraud prevention.
Will Raderman: To pick out what the commissioner said, I think New Jersey has consistently been a leader on how to incrementally improve the UI program in the state, which I think as many states as possible should try to emulate that. And the way that the commissioner talks about a dedicated stream of funding, I think looking big picture at the federal level, I think ensuring that every state is able to receive reliable administrative funding, which the main source of administrative resources is coming through federal grants. And so how can we ensure that those dollars are adequately adjusted for inflation over time, are less variable year to year, and actually are factoring in the costs of technology and modernization costs and integrity costs. Where right now, it’s not always easy for states to make those forward-looking investments, nor is it easy to make incremental changes over time. There’s often an effort to just pull off a big swing but not full understanding of what products are actually being purchased.
And so if we can get the funding in the right spot nationally, that really will help states actually follow the New Jersey lead and consistently make those adjustments over time, so that their systems are more agile.
Josh McCabe: Thank you. So one of the things that we saw when we looked at Canada’s history, is that there was a time period where there was some pretty substantial burdens on employers. I remember reading a report, initially the record was like 34 pages, and then they worked with employers, and they got it down to a four-page or three-page, pretty easy to fill out form. And a lot of times, you can have different platforms can do it for you. So what do you see as some of the key challenges or drawbacks, or things that you really think we need to think about when putting something like this out?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Usability, user testing, end-user testing, making sure that you’re, in this specific one, working with employers on the testing of it. We always think we know how they operate, and we’re usually wrong about that, so I think that’s always super important, and it’s not usually built into technology contracts, quite frankly. And also, like I said, just being flexible about making changes along the way, and being responsive to requests to those changes.
We know that the easier we make it for our claimants and for their separating employers, the better off it’s going to be for them. I think trying to tweak ways to make sure that the information we’re getting is accurate on the first bite of the apple, when they submit the information. And one of my concerns is that they’re going to submit information upon separation, someone’s going to file, and then they’re going to get the basic three-way call, the form in our state, and they’re going to remind them, “Oh, wait, I didn’t mean to say what I said when they were separated.” So I am prepared for that kind of conflict while people get used to the fact that what they’re submitting is going to be, for lack of a better term, used against them possibly.
Michele Evermore: I would just say also, as somebody who comes at this from a claimant advocacy angle, as happy as you can make employers, the better off you are. The least pain that you can create for employers, the better things are for the unemployment insurance system in general.
Will Raderman: Which, when we were writing the report originally, I think one of the fun parts of the process was actually asking our own HR team what their experience was. And we’ve got employees that are in a whole bunch of states across the country at this point, and so there’s the need to actually respond to different tax notices, separation notices for six, seven, eight states. And like the commissioner mentioned, it can be coming in the physical mail, and the deadlines to respond could actually be four, five, six, seven days. But what if the mail arrives on day eight, and then you’re already late on responding as a result?
I mean, I think those are very real frustrations that employers have to deal with. When you look at is it going to the right person? If the notification is actually sent electronically, what if the person that it is typically being sent to at the firm is no longer employed there, so no one’s actually able to respond to that original request? I mean, these were all frustrations that we, like our own HR team, was dealing with over the last year, and it’s important to take those kinds of frustrations and concerns seriously. And so making sure that the process is as smooth as possible just needs to be a huge part of the process to making sure that it ends up being an effective form as adoption increases.
Josh McCabe: So we’ve been focusing on these records of employment, or verification certificates, but it’s part of this broader landscape. So what else in this broader policy landscape do we need to consider to optimize any changes we make to this particular verification process? We’ve talked a little bit about tech, about experience rating, about employer outreach, what else is on your minds?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Enhanced wage records. I think it’s just something… I think it’s talked about a lot amongst us geeks, but not a lot out there in the aether, which is surprising, because a lot of businesses are in favor, when you talk about the Chamber of Commerce Foundation, and who’s involved in their work. And if anything, that could, when we talk about our lack of economic forecasting ability, our lack of real-time data during COVID, and it seems to be a bipartisan issue, and many states have it. We don’t have it in New Jersey, but even states that have it, it’s not standardized.
I do think that USDOL and the feds can play a role in that, and having it, especially if they’re talking about, without commenting on the veracity it, about economic data in this country, what better way to have real-time data than them doing that? And I think that obviously, a huge part of our improper payment rate are workers who we don’t have the wage records for yet, and huge percentage of people we have to go back after for overpayments per federal law, or because what they submitted to us via affidavit, or any other kind of monetary, where it did not match up with all the wage records, be received later.
Josh McCabe: Commissioner, can you say a little bit more what you mean by enhanced wage records, for the non nerds here?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Yeah, I’m sorry. So in New Jersey, I could speak about, we get very little data that comes in from employers. We basically get a name, a social, no date of birth, the number of base weeks worked, don’t ask me to explain base weeks, and the full earnings for the full quarter. Nothing about hours worked, nothing about what their hourly wage was, nothing about their job title, or what they did, or even where they work necessarily.
So enhanced wage records, it’s two parts, right? It’s in my mind, it’s having more information about that worker, and the broader economy obviously, when you have it in aggregate. But the second part of that is having it be more timely. I would love for it to be… In my mind, there’s no reason that feature can’t be real-time. I mean, all these companies are paying payroll processors, and they’re submitting it every week or two weeks, I don’t know why they can’t just also submit to us. But I know that that might be a lot, but even if we can go from quarterly to monthly, that would, in my mind, then two-thirds or so would be improved every month, every quarter, by having more accurate wage records, or more timely way of record, I should say.
Will Raderman: And I think it would be great to have the payroll vendors as part of that conversation, like how can we streamline what their responsibilities are, so there’s a greater ease at being able to pull off a monthly reporting. I think beyond the topics we’ve discussed, there’s tech, there’s funding levels. The Commissioner mentioned simplicity, and I think if there’s a way at the federal level, to just have a bit more commonality across all of the programs, there will be a lot of downstream effects from just having more standardization, where if something that one state does really well is to be replicated, having comparable legal structures, technology structures, all of the above, I think is just pretty critical in order to be able to pass along that kind of knowledge and sets of improvements elsewhere.
Josh McCabe: Michele, anything to add to that?
Michele Evermore: Many apologies, I froze for a second. I don’t know if Will mentioned, but watch this space for a report on enhanced wage records. We’ve been working very closely for a while on this question. And yeah, having better information about worker outcomes is… You can’t run a training program without knowing did these people actually get placed in jobs that pay what we’re expecting and titles that we’re hoping that they will get. So yeah, I totally agree with the commissioner, and probably with whatever Will said about any enhanced wage records.
Will Raderman: Which, I’d actually like to ask the commissioner a quick question about, not the enhanced records, but the separation information, because I’ve heard anecdotally, that states could apply it for other purposes as well. Do you feel like New Jersey could apply it for just better understanding some of the labor market trends, given that it’s being collected from all workers?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Absolutely, there’s no doubt. I mean, I don’t know if that was the intent or not, but there’s no barring us using it for any other reason. Like I said, I mean we’re also going to use it to reach out to these workers, to find out all these different reasons. And also, quite frankly, we don’t have enhanced wage records yet in New Jersey, but this is almost going to be a little bit of retroactive enhanced wage records, because we’re going to get information on the separation notice that we don’t have about these workers now unless they file for UI. So I think it’ll be very interesting to see what percentage of workers actually file, and what industries. My great office of research information has done some work in the past year or so, looking at WARN notices, and what workers are affected by those, and how quickly they get re-employed, because there’s always so much, rightly so, angst, anxiety, when you see a WARN notice.
And to be very clear, I’m not discounting the trauma that any single person goes through, but usually, there’s such a small percentage of labor market, but they get blown up in headlines like everything’s going wrong. But we’ve found that at least in New Jersey, most of the folks that affect companies are finding re-employment pretty quickly. So that’s the kind of information we’re going to be able to get and use. So also… I’m sorry, I talk very fast. WARN notices kick off rapid response services, but we don’t get notices for companies under size. Now, we’re going to be able to provide, whether it be virtual or in person, or go to a one-stop, rapid response services for all separated employees no matter what the size of the business is that might be closing, or whatever the mass separation is.
Will Raderman: For those that aren’t familiar with WARN notices, could you explain when those actually are submitted?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Well, in New Jersey, it’s got to be 90 days in advance for employers of 50 or more workers, I believe. And they have to give a notice to the state. Quite frankly, our only role with WARN notices in New Jersey, is to post them online and to offer the company rapid response services. But now, having this individualized information and email, and other contact information about each worker, it will let us really expand our suite of services. And as Michele, anybody else who works with USDOL, or any of my state colleagues who are here, it’ll also help boost our metrics on our workforce side. These will be contacts. Hopefully, we’re getting these folks registered into EOA if they need those services. So I’m just really excited about what it’s going to be. It’s not just about UI, it’s going to be about helping our workforce as a whole in a holistic manner. And by the way, Will, major kudos to having your work rights poster right over your left shoulder. I love that
Will Raderman: I am taking, or doing this in our HR director’s office, so it worked out perfectly.
Josh McCabe: So we have a related question from the audience, can you imagine other use cases for an agency-issued work separation certificate? I think a lot of folks are thinking about for SNAP or Medicaid, if you have to prove you’re laid off. And I’ll add, in Canada, they use the same record or certificate, because their paid family and medical leave is built right into their employment insurance system, so they use it for that as well. So thoughts for usage, beyond data, beyond unemployment insurance, do you foresee anything else?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: I think that’s already answered the question already, but I’ll just also add we’re working very closely with our partners at our human services agency, which in New Jersey, covers SNAP and Medicaid, about all kinds of information, data sharing. This can definitely go along that. I don’t know all the particulars yet of what’s going to come out from the feds on the rules for all the OBBA changes, but I’m sure that the information provided in these notice will be helpful, at least to some parts of those populations going forward.
Michele Evermore: Yeah. I think I’ve gone to various states, and asked, “Is it possible within the next five or 10 years, to do something with your state technology, so that when somebody applies for unemployment insurance, they automatically get kicked into other forms,” and I often get laughed at. But I think that this is a way to get to that without having to do the technology that’s very, very difficult and complicated.
Will Raderman: Yeah. In terms of for other programs and maintaining eligibility, I think it depends, in part, on the frequency that you actually need to verify. And so with unemployment records, they’re submitted quarterly. If that is the frequency that someone needs to verify, then great. I think it could work well. Same thing with the separation notices for that portion of time. If state agencies have that information on hand, I think it could very much be utilized, but it really just depends on how frequently those certifications need to happen for other programs.
Josh McCabe: And I’ll ask, I think as we talked about Steve Wadner, who was the inspiration for some of this work, and one of the things we realized is lots of states have some sort of record of employment on the books. They have some sort of separation certificate on the books. But when we dove into it, we realized very quickly, they look very, very different in a lot of cases, some are similar in name only. So Will, or others, do you want to talk more about what you see as the essential components to make something like this work?
Will Raderman: Yeah. So, I think the key pieces of information are you want to have that job separation detail, or set of details, collected each time someone is actually becoming unemployed, so that the agency is consistently prepared in the event that someone is actually claiming benefits. It’d be great to also have the date of the job separation, just more details as to when, where, why the separation happened, the better. But those two data points, I think, are very useful for the agency to have. There are states across the country that are doing different things at this point in time, that actually take place at the time of separation, so I think it’s good to be clear that states are either moving in this direction or already have requirements for employers now, and it would be great to actually maximize what they’re already working on, so that the states, the employers, the workers get the biggest bang for the buck of what’s being required at this point. Which, nearly half of states do require employers to retain the reason for separation in their records in internally.
And there’s overlap here, but you’ve got about half of states that do require some kind of documentation be supplied at the time of separation. Oftentimes, it’s a more generic pamphlet provided to workers, but you do have a handful of states that are requiring actual details about the employment, the job separation details that are being supplied to the worker at this time, or at least the process is set up where that is being asked of employers. And the notice is going to the workers, but wouldn’t it be great if at the time of separation, the agency was actually receiving that set of details as well, so that when the worker applies, the agency is all set to go for actually evaluating the claim. Which, I think making sure that states get the most out of what they’re already doing is also, I think, kind of a key factor and what we’d like to see enhanced.
Josh McCabe: I think everyone talked about this idea of making sure your policies are legible, right? Where the agency has to take whatever’s in law, and the law can be complicated, which makes it hard to administer. I’ve heard from folks in different states, that definitions of separation can vary. And in Canada, they changed over time, in terms of what counts as a eligible separation, or ineligible separation, how do you collect that information? So what do you think is important, in terms of making sure what you’re doing is legible to claimants, employers, and the folks who have to process these forms themselves?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: I think a lot of that goes hand in hand with technology. One of the biggest changes we made with [inaudible 00:45:43] you guys do all the time, and since then, was just having, even before we updated our whole intake process, was just providing helper text on our claim intake page about what certain things meant. And it made a huge difference just by itself, because people in the real world don’t know what voluntary quit meant. They don’t know what separation means necessarily. People have different opinions of what fired meant, or laid off. So I think that’s some of the biggest problems, is having standardized human-understandable language on that. We’ve done a ton of work with the help of US Digital Response and US Digital Service on that.
And way important in that realm, is language access, and New Jersey is a crazy as ever state, having all those notices in actual understandable Spanish, for folks from different countries, as opposed to just Google translate Spanish that doesn’t make sense to most people, has been huge. And we’ve done it, and I give major kudos to all of our staff that’s worked on that. We had our frontline call center agents who deal with different language speakers on a regular basis, and use their experience to talk to our staff, who were updating some of these forms online and the mail that’s going out. So I think having that stuff be consistent, and having your own staff trained with the different kinds of terms that are used by regular people in the UI world about what these things mean.
Michele Evermore: I want to follow up on that with executive buy-in. I spent a couple days down in New Jersey, observing technology development, and I realized all of technology is policy. When you decide to put the users at the center of the experience, that’s policy. And when you have these conflicting policy views, when you have these conflicting ideas about what can and can’t be done, where you need resources, it’s really important to have a decision maker in the room who can say, “Okay, if you don’t have the resources, let’s figure out how to get them.” Or if we’re running into no here, and I know that with technology development, there’s just a wall of nos, and if you can get somebody in the room to say that, “No, no is not an answer,” to know the no, then you can really move forward with usable legible technology that makes sense. You got to have the policy people in the room.
Robert Asaro-Angelo: I’m going to use that, know the no. Could we get the Noid in there somehow?
Will Raderman: The one thing I would probably add on having a consistent set of terms and definitions, is oftentimes, I mean for one, nationally, we want to make sure that it’s easy to replicate state by state. But also, if we know that there’s certain kinds of disruptions that we want to be making sure to track, ensuring that those kinds of terms can be added and actually accounted for properly. That’s important not just for labor market tracking purposes, but often for program access purposes, especially if different re-employment programs have different levels of scope and eligibility.
I think the key example that it’s hard to avoid, but with a program like Trade Adjustment Assistance, it could be really difficult for workers to prove that their own jobs were eliminated due to trade. And what would have been really valuable when that program was in place, was actually having separation records, where the employer is identifying that that was in fact the reason that their job was eliminated, and they would’ve had access to all sorts of re-employment supports in order to get into their next job, and potentially, a different sector. So I think as we’re thinking through the uses for a separation certificate or notice, moving forward, ensuring that it is a comprehensive and consistent standardized list of reasons why someone could be unemployed or leaving a job, that ends up helping for labor market tracking, and for ensuring that there’s swift connection with programs that someone could be eligible for.
Josh McCabe: I think lastly, we talked about we have one unemployment insurance system, but 50-something programs, so each state has their own-
Will Raderman: 53.
Josh McCabe: 53. So can you guys talk about the trade-offs between federally-led reforms versus state-led reforms, and what you guys think about there?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Let’s see. I think state-led reforms are probably more impactful short-term, because it’s the state that administers these programs, and it’s much easier for me to get things done when I can say the governor and the Senate president and the speaker all agreed on this, than saying, “Hey, here’s a UPL from Michele Evermore.” No, kidding. I just think it’s more realistic. And as much as quite frankly, I think far too often, and I say this as a former USDOL employee who was always frustrated states wouldn’t do what we wanted them to do, I think sometimes state folks, whether it be UI or Workforce, or any agency that’s funded by the feds, are too concerned with following the letter of whatever metrics are being measured, or worrying about the risk of running afoul of something rather than focusing on customer service and getting the benefits into the hands of the workers. The Employment Compensation Act, Social Security Act, is a remedial legislation, the focus should always be on getting benefits into the hands of workers.
So I think state reforms for the now, are more effective, but clearly, I would love for there be more federal action on this front, and I’ve been very disappointed by both parties, for not learning lessons from COVID and taking more action at the federal level to make the systems better.
Michele Evermore: Where I feel like federal action could be actually the most useful is in actually just defining what things are, so that hours means the same thing in New Jersey and New York, so that weeks means the same thing. I think that makes it easier to compare things across states, and also to have interoperable things. But I would say this should also maybe even be seen as being community-led. What we’ve found with enhanced wage records, for example, is reaching out to the community as a first step ensures compliance, ensures people understand their rights and responsibilities, not just the employer community, but claimant community, various stakeholders in the system. And if you get their buy-in early, and then the legislature and the state UI agency work together, you end up with a much more effective situation, I think.
Will Raderman: Yeah, I think it’s a mix. I mean, there’s certain levers that I think each state could very well have preferences on, overall benefit levels or replacement rates. There’s certain nuances with the actual labor market in each state, where there’s different industries where there’s greater emphasis. But having at least, like Michele is saying, consistency of terminology, the core infrastructure for rules and implementation, where it’s easy to actually transfer things that work well between states, I think that’s very important. And really, to help states open up all sorts of long-term investments, ensuring that they’re actually getting what is very much a federal-level policy problem right now, with how the agencies themselves are being financed. If we can unlock reforms in that area, ensure that the agencies can properly staff and actually iteratively improve their systems, that enables there to be more state level effort moving forward as well.
Josh McCabe: And I’ll end with an open-ended question. Is there anything we didn’t talk about that you think is really worth highlighting before we go?
Robert Asaro-Angelo: I just think it’s really important to, when you’re trying to work on these kind of policies, to be upfront and open with businesses about why this is going to benefit them in the long run. In that, well, yes, and be upfront, and acknowledge that this might be a burden. We deal with burdens all the time on changes in policy, and I’m very open about that when people come at us about, “Well, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?” Well, one, it’s the law that was passed, and we also are trying to overcome the burden of implementing this, and we’re all in the same boat. I say very often, that state employees in UI and elsewhere, are the victims of some of these old policies or failed technology, and we’re in the same boat as many of these small businesses who are the ones who are the first to complain about any kind of new mandates.
Michele Evermore: I just want to commend you both on the depth of the research that you did to produce this report, on really looking at what states are actually doing, and providing a clearer picture on that. I love any unemployment insurance report that says, “Okay, this is what the states are actually doing in this regard before making a recommendation.”
Will Raderman: I don’t know if I’ve got too much to add in terms of policy focus, but I think just emphasizing that the more focus from the federal level, to just really assist states with improving their programs, the better. And the more Congress can really focus in on ways that they can help that, that really will just really pay huge dividends over time.
Josh McCabe: Awesome. I want to thank our panelists for joining us today, Will, Michele, and Commissioner. If you have any questions, you can reach us. We’d love to get follow-up. And we’ll have a recording of this available so you can show it to all your nerdy friends and family, and get them interested in unemployment insurance reform. So thanks for everyone, and have a great afternoon.
Robert Asaro-Angelo: Thank you.
