California unemployment checks: New report explores why they’re often so hard to get
If you get laid off, there’s a system that’s supposed to help you get by: unemployment benefits. Whenever
But the benefits have become more difficult for workers to access, due to the program’s design and decisions made by California’s embattled
The report found that the benefits program’s orientation toward businesses — which fund the benefits and have an incentive to keep costs down — led the department to emphasize holding down costs. Pressure from the federal government to avoid errors led the department to try, however successfully, to minimize fraud.
The result: the department pursued lowering costs and hindering fraud over making it easy for workers to access benefits.
“Looked at individually, one of these policies might seem totally reasonable, either to limit fraud or minimize business costs,” said
Early in the COVID pan
demic as joblessness rates soared, the department struggled to keep up with a surge of benefits claims — leaving some Californians repeatedly calling the department in frustration and waiting weeks or months for the money to arrive.
Then came sensational reports that the department had paid out as much as
Last December, the department froze 345,000 disability insurance claims due to suspected fraud. As it tried to root out disability benefits fraud, calls to the department with questions surged, and many went unanswered.
Despite an increase in fraud during the pandemic, fraud has historically been uncommon in California’s unemployment benefits, likely “representing less than 1 percent of claims,” the report found. The vast majority of fraud that occurred during the pandemic was concentrated in a temporary federal program that has now ended.
The report lays out evidence that unemployment benefits have become too difficult for workers to access.
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