Reports
COVID-19 – UI Claims with Suspicious Email Accounts
In September 2022, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) alerted U.S. Department of Labor to over $45 billion in potential fraud paid in four high-risk areas. One high-risk area was Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants filing with suspicious email accounts. Through Employment and Training Administration (ETA), the OIG provided states with underlying methodology as well as specific claimant information for follow-up action. This audit will examine the extent to which ETA and states have taken action to follow up on potentially fraudulent CARES Act UI claims filed with suspicious email accounts identified and referred by the OIG.
The Pandemic’s Effects on Oregonians Exposed Risks and Highlighted the Need to Modernize Oregon’s Unemployment Insurance System
COVID-19 – Alert Memo Third-Party Identity Service Contractor
There have been multiple public and private reports that identity service contractors did not provide equitable access to unemployment compensation and mishandled confidential information. We will determine if Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and states provided sufficient oversight from March 27, 2000 – present over facial recognition technology used by identity service contractors.
COVID-19 – Alert Memo: Data Warehousing and Analytics to Prevent UI Fraud
As of March 2021, DOL reported approximately 77 million additional workers had filed initial jobless claims from March 2020 to March 2021. In June 2021, DOL OIG issued a request for updated data to ETA and State Workforce Agencies (SWA) for updated data; once received, OIG data analysis identified $1.3 billion in potentially fraudulent UI benefits paid to claimants in two high-risk categories based on claimant age groups: (1) children under the age of 14 years old, and (2) adults 100 years of age or older. Given the magnitude of payments made to potentially likelihood of ineligible claimants in these age categories groups, we are developing an alert memo to bring immediate attention to this issue.
FAA Quickly Awarded CARES Act Funds but Can Enhance Its Oversight Approach To Promote Effective Stewardship
Performance Audit of the Short-Time Compensation Program under the CARES Act, Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers Act and the America Rescue Plan Act
The Short-Time Compensation (STC) program acts as a work share program, with employers reducing the number of hours offered to employees and the state making up the difference in the form of benefit payments. Our focus will be to determine if Department of Labor ensured states met the STC program requirements and used the related funds in accordance with provisions under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, the Continued Assistance Act, and the America Rescue Plan Act for the period of March 27, 2020 to September 6, 2021.