Gwen Moore Laments Unemployment Insurance Funding 'That Punishes States That Do A Good Job'

3 months ago

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) questioned witnesses about unemployment insurance fraud and federal assistance to states.

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Transcript

00:00 Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.

00:05 I think this is an extremely important discussion, and I want to get a few things straight before

00:11 I move on.

00:14 I think, Ms. Phillips, you were talking about the non-fraudulent improper payments that

00:22 were made.

00:23 Would you say that we have not disaggregated what percentage of the overpayments were fraudulent

00:32 versus non-fraudulent, accidental?

00:39 Thank you, Representative Moore, for that question.

00:42 The ETA-227 has no demographic information.

00:46 Demographic.

00:47 There is no disaggregated demographic information.

00:51 It is broken down by what type of non-fraud improper error code a state reports on that

01:02 quarterly report.

01:06 But we do know which ones were fraudulent versus improper payment.

01:13 What percentage is that?

01:15 That wasn't clear to me.

01:19 Everyone could look at the information state by state or nationally, but I can only speak

01:24 right now to Illinois' numbers.

01:28 In 2023, as I mentioned just a minute ago, I just want to make sure I am completely accurate

01:35 here, that 62% of Illinois' total improper payments, total overpayments, were considered

01:44 non-fraud improper payments.

01:47 Mr. Taylor, would you agree with that?

01:48 I probably should have asked you that.

01:52 What percentage of these payments were improper and other parts fraudulent?

01:56 It depends on the state, Representative Moore.

02:00 There was a wide variety of disparity when it comes to what we call first party and third

02:04 party fraud.

02:05 Third party fraud being the stolen identity, first party improper.

02:11 The reason I have just burnt up so much of my time on this, Mr. LeHood, is because I

02:18 just think our committee was focusing on this as if the majority of these payments were

02:26 fraudulent.

02:27 Thank God we made these payments because I think it was Ms. Phillips that said 64% of

02:34 folk live paycheck to paycheck.

02:38 We know what people were doing four years ago.

02:40 I mean, they were maxing out their credit cards, hoarding toilet paper.

02:48 We want to just be clear that it was important.

02:52 All of you would agree that despite the fraud, which is terrible, that we saved people's

02:59 lives literally by providing this benefit.

03:03 Ms. Townsend, your re-employment work strategies.

03:08 I'm very impressed with your ability to get people back to work.

03:13 It's a model that everybody is looking at.

03:16 I'm wondering if what we used to say, that you bite your hand, spite your face or whatever.

03:28 Haven't we found that states that did a remarkable job of avoiding inflationary problems over

03:37 the years reduced staffing and then found themselves in this situation where we had

03:44 an emergency and they just didn't have the staffing in place as a punishment almost,

03:50 where they're doing so well in getting people unemployed.

03:57 I'm wondering if any of you feel that the formula maybe punishes states that do a good

04:05 job.

04:07 Maybe I'll ask you that, Ms. Phillips.

04:11 And also, yeah, go on.

04:14 I think I'd go back to Mr. Redeman's comments earlier that the way the resource justification

04:20 model works is that when there's a low demand for unemployment benefits, that is also a

04:29 low administrative amount of money that states have.

04:33 You can't fix the roof during that time.

04:37 So that's one point.

04:40 But I also want to comment on the workforce aspect because as a former fellow UI administrator,

04:49 states across the country are working on the RESEA program.

04:54 Most administrators believe that the UI program is a temporary, it's a trampoline.

05:00 But the people that are eligible to apply for UI are workers and they want to get back

05:05 to work.

05:06 And most state agencies are working on that.

05:10 Can I ask something very quick before I get cut off?

05:14 Do we see instances where there are barriers to applying to unemployment?

05:19 I mean, like the state has taken the position that we don't want to provide this benefit.

05:26 And so many more people who are eligible and need it don't get it.

05:31 And that also lowers the numbers and sort of masks the need.

05:36 Representative Moore, I can really only speak from my experience in Illinois that there's

05:43 no preventing people from applying.

05:46 But I think we know, especially through the pandemic, the challenges that any UI claimant

05:53 faces in applying and the administrative burdens that they face on online applications, on

06:00 certification processes, on other documentation that they need to provide.

06:07 I know I'm over time, but one of the things that I cannot unsee is I observed these live

06:14 claim filing observations and I watched people from five different regions in Illinois apply,

06:21 including an older woman, 76-year-old woman from downstate Illinois near Carbondale who

06:27 was struggling mightily.

06:29 She came into the office because she couldn't apply online.

06:34 It wasn't working for her.

06:35 There were many different blockades that I won't go into.

06:39 But there are improvements that can be made to the actual application process.

06:46 Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence.

06:49 Thank you, Ms. Moore.

Gwen Moore Laments Unemployment Insurance Funding 'That Punishes States That Do A Good Job'

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