Warren, Sanders push Labor on plans to create a centralized unemployment ‘starting point’

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are asking the Labor Department for more information following reporting from Nextgov/FCW that Labor is planning to test out a more centralized role in unemployment insurance claims.

Labor told states in August that it planned to pilot a new unemployment.gov platform to intake claims and provide identity proofing and work authorization by the end of the year.

A DOL official told Nextgov/FCW on Tuesday that the government shutdown delayed the project, which is now expected to launch in the spring of next year with two to five states that have yet to be identified. They also said that the project won’t involve claims intake.

“This pilot is expected to serve as a starting point for initial UI claims that would provide both ID verification and work authorization services. Once those front-end services are complete, individuals will be directed to states to file their initial claims,” they said, noting that “DOL is not piloting initial claims intake or taking that function over on behalf of states.”

Warren and Sanders want more information about the pilot and how the data the department collects will be used by Jan. 7. 

“The agency has not yet clarified how it will implement this pilot, who will have access to the data it collects or how it would use this data,” they wrote in a letter to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRamer on Wednesday. 

Some experts worry about the potential privacy impacts of Labor taking over these processes, pointing to the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to consolidate sensitive government data. Labor is also asking states for sensitive unemployment information in the name of fighting fraud. 

The important question with the new pilot is if the department will keep the data it accesses and what it will be doing with that data, said Andrew Stettner, the former director of Labor's Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization during the Biden administration, as well as if it will be directing states to take actions based on its verifications.

Involving Labor in work authorization could mean that the agency intends to run information received via the unemployment.gov project through the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration status database — something Labor already requires states to do on their own and is pushing them to do more regularly.

Work authorization is required to get jobless aid, apart from a few states that have considered proposals to create secondary programs for undocumented people who lose work, said Michele Evermore, who formerly worked on unemployment insurance modernization in the Labor Department during the Biden administration. 

There aren’t widespread issues with people not authorized to work getting the benefit, she said. 

The Biden administration considered a similar, centralized effort for claims intake before deciding it wasn’t feasible, said Evermore. Helping states with identity verification after problems with fraud in the program during the pandemic and developing modular technology for states to tap into were top priorities. 

What’s different about such an effort now is the current administration’s push to consolidate data from various programs, said Evermore, although the feasibility challenges likely remain.

Eligibility standards for unemployment can vary across states, making it difficult to centralize, said Evermore. 

Warren and Sanders point to the exodus of DOL employees under this administration in their letter, writing that “this raises concerns about DOL’s capacity to handle its basic statutory functions — let alone take on other responsibilities.”

“We are concerned that DOL’s attempt to take on this new responsibility will result in a failure to properly administer unemployment benefits — and create grievous economic and privacy risks for millions of Americans,” they write in the letter. “These concerns are especially acute given that the Trump Administration has already mishandled Americans’ data at every turn.”