Department investigators are NOT true and accurate

At almost every unemployment hearing there will be document in the hearing packet that pretends to be a claimant statement. This “statement” pretends to represent what the claimant told a Department investigator in a phone call, and at the hearing the administrative law judge will almost always ask the claimant, “Is this statement true and accurate?”

Note: Many people tell me about their phone interviews being recorded. Phone interviews are never recorded, because then the pretend claimant statements describe here would not be possible.

No, a claiman statement is not true and accurate. It never is. If the statement was true and accurate it would be a transcript of the phone conversation. Or, it would at least be the original notes, without any editing, of the entire and complete phone conversation (and so qualify, for legal purposes, as contemporaneous notes, when the person who wrote those notes testifies at the hearing).

What these “claimant statements” are actually are just pretend confessions, as the only information in these statements is the information the investigator wants to include to establish the claimant’s fault or mistake.

To understand what is going on here, below is a claimant statement/confession prepared by Department investigator Anastasia-1437 and then the contemporaneous notes written by the claimant herself during that phone conversation (the claimant was a former paralegal, who made it a habit to take notes of her phone conversations with Department staffers).

Pretend claimant statement

Note: Outside of changes to names and identifying information, below is a verbatim copy of the claimant statement.

6/28/22: I call it the claimant at 8:30 AM, identify myself, indicated that I received a call from her and am presuming it is due to the “Call Me” letter that I have sent her, identify the issues and requested that the call me back no later than 8:30 AM on 6/30/22. I indicated that if she does reach my voicemail that she please leave a message indicating the best times to reach her. I provided my name, title and telephone number and explained that if I did not hear from her by the deadline, a determination will be made based on best available information.

6/28/22: I understand Pandemic Unemployment Assistance provides for the repayment of all overpaid benefits, penalties, and that I may lose Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or be referred for prosecution if it is determined I made a false statement, misrepresentation, or omitted facts in order to receive benefits not due.

I understand that the statement I am making will be used to determine my eligibility for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits. I understand that any false statement I make may result in overpayment of benefits, penalties, loss of future unemployment benefits and possible prosecution.

My name is CLAIMANT. My date of birth is XX/XX/59 . I have a Master’s Degree in YYYYYY/years of education. It was a long time ago but think that I have read the “Notice to All PUA Applicants” and “PUA Rights and Responsibilities.” I filed my own claims. I live in Walworth County. I filed my claims online from Walworth County.

I have refused the notice that you have sent me and the wages, vacation pay and holiday pay from ACME CORP looks accurate and the wages for one day of work with the GROVER’S CORNERS are accurate.

The claimant was asked why she did not report the work and wages, vacation, and/or holiday pay in each of the weeks in which she worked and/or received vacation pay and/ or received holiday pay when filing her weekly claims for PUA benefits.

Let me explain this… I have a voice studio [MARIA CALLAS Productions Inc] which is my main source of income and I only work at ACME CORP to get health insurance. I work full time at ACME but only get paid $13.50 per hour which is far less than what I make in my voice studio. Because of COVID-19, I was unable to give voice lessons because the schools have closed due to the pandemic. Even now, we may plan and an event but we have COVID outbreaks and place is still closed down. My business never recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

I explained to the claimant that I was not questioning as to why she filed for PUA benefits; my question is different. I explained that in order to receive pua benefits weekly, the claimant has to file a weekly claim certification in which each week she is asked if she worked in employment. I explained that in each week in which she worked for ACME CORP and/or GROVER’S CORNERS She reported that she did not work in employment and certified each week that her responses were accurate and correct.

I understand what you’re saying. I misunderstood and I thought they were only talking about my studio, my self-employment.

Explained to the claimant that the weekly claim certification system asks two questions; it asks if she worked in employment and separately asks if she worked in self-employment in which she answered no to both and asked why she answered no to both.

It was an honest and stupid mistake. I was filing for PUA for my business only, not for the job where I worked full time and I thought they were asking about my business, my voice studio [MARIA CALLAS Productions Inc].

I have nothing further to add; I have no questions

Contemporaneous notes (what was actually said)

Note: Outside of changes to names and identifying information, below is a verbatim copy of the claimant’s contemporaneous notes.

6/28/22 — 42 minutes, 35 seconds.

An adjudicator arranged a telephone conversation with me at 8:30 AM. Her name was Anastasia. We exchanged greetings and then she notified me that she was calling to discuss the benefits that I applied for and received through the PUA Unemployment Program. She told me that this conversation was to determine if I made false statements, omitted facts in a fraudulent manner, etc.

I asked her if the conversation was being recorded and she said no. Then I asked if I was being accused of a crime and should I hire a lawyer to represent me before I had any further discussions with her. She stressed that that would not be necessary, that she was just collecting information at this time, that there was no determination against me.

She asked me why I didn’t report my employment at ACME Corp.

I told her that I had never tried to conceal my job at ACME and all she had to do was read my initial application for PUA benefits and she would see that I had ACME listed as an employer.

I went on to explain to her that my small business was my major source of income and that was shut down as soon as the schools and universities were shut down- that I was a sub-contractor at those schools. I pointed out again that this was explained in initial application.

She said that they weren’t questioning if my small business was legit . . . and I interrupted her and said I hope not because during my initial application, I had to upload several years of tax returns to prove my business was legit.

She said that no one was questioning my business MARIA CALLAS Productions existed and that I definitely qualified for PUA benefits.

She then explained that I didn’t qualify to be paid any benefits because I was working at ACME.

Then I asked her then why was I paid?

She replied that I answered specific questions incorrectly and therefore was concealing the fact that I was working full time at ACME.

I asked her what question did I answer weekly that is being considered concealment?

She read me a question that I explained to her after was always unclear to me and I answered it in accordance with the facts of my business that was shut down. There was never any intent to conceal facts in order to collect the $173.00 per week.

She said that it was my responsibility to read and interpret correctly the PUA Rights and Responsibilities.

I told her that I had read those and that they were also unclear and left me more confused than before so I started calling PUA agents several times (9 all together) to ask them to interpret the rules of PUA — specifically about my situation with the ACME job. Each and every one of these agents — who supposedly are professionals and know PUA benefits thoroughly — told me that I should keep claiming weekly just like I had that the ACME job was totally separate from PUA benefits. That PUA was being paid to me for my lost self-employment.

Anastasia said that that was most unfortunate, but unfortunately, I, the claimant, was responsible for knowing what to do, not the agents.

I got angry and said, Are you trying to tell me that your agents aren’t responsible for giving the correct answers to the claimants?

Then she got nervous. And gave me an 8-minute speech on the conditions for the workers at Unemployment. “CLAIMANT, I have been working 7 days a week since the pandemic started in 2020. I was here before the pandemic. No one could have been prepared for what happened and how we were grossly under-staffed and how our technology was way outdated to handle the numbers of claims that came in on a daily basis. We had to hire scores of workers and we had no time to train any of them. It usually takes one whole year to fully train a worker here. What we ended up doing is training groups of people for a part of the system and then other groups for another part of the system and so on. So none of these new workers could begin to answer questions outside of their area that they were trained. The best one could do is transfer the call to another new agent, hopefully that was trained in the area that the claimant needed to get info.

I interrupted her and told her that on one of the calls I made, I talked to three agents and never got my question answered.

She said, yes, that she believed me. Then I asked her — then why are you trying to accuse me or charge me with concealment when I just told you that I tried to get the correct instructions from your department.

She told me that it all came down to how I answered the questions.

I said but the question wasn’t clear. The questions are not clearly stated. She said that she disagreed with me.

I asked her if there were other PUA claimants that were tripped up on some of the questions and also answered regarding their self-employment. I said you know Anastasia, a lot of people have two jobs, it is very common. Especially with single people.

I then asked her if any suits had been filed against the DWD Unemployment Dept. for giving false information, or not being able to give any information, or for harassment and punitive damages to an already terribly stressed and financially devastated population of self employed and small business owners.

She said she wasn’t aware of any such suits.

And I said, I believe that there may be some in the future. I think what has happened today is illegal, unethical and down right criminal. If you ask me the State is trying to get their money that they gave during the pandemic to pay for the new computer system they had to get because the one they had was not able to handle the number of claims. WI made us wait much longer than other states to get our first payments which made great hardship on many folks. And now WI is going to get it all back and jack up a lot of fines so they can get even more money. Shame on them. And Anastasia, you are wrong, I do need to lawyer up. Big time.

She replied, Oh no not necessarily. Lawyers are very expensive. Look you need to go to your portal and appeal everything. I’m sure if you do, you can represent yourself and have the concealment lifted because you did not intend to conceal. I believe that, CLAIMANT. I figure they’ll drop also drop all of the 40% penalties as well. I figure you will be looking at around $6000.00 that you’ll have to pay back.

I said, Hm, that’s about what I got paid all together. She said yes, you shouldn’t have been paid anything because you were working at ACME.

I said, I wish I’d quit claiming when I couldn’t get a straight answer. Well, I have to get back to work. And she said that she did too but she had decided to retire at the end of this year. She said that the stress was getting to her because she was one of the very few that actually knew the system and the workload was killing her.

I said good luck and happy retirement. I have to go back to work but I will appeal every count against me and I will hire a lawyer.

The takeaway

Naturally, the claimant was charged with concealment, and supposedly owed $29,992.20 ($20,223.00 in PUA, LWA, and PUC benefits she was paid + $9,769.20 in concealment administrative penalties). But for her contemporaneous notes and the fact that she had other notes of when she told Department staffers about her work at ACME and they told her to ignore that work when filing PUA claims the concealment allegations were tossed at the hearing.

But, notice what Anastasia is doing in her “claimant statement.”

First, she presents a statement that the claimant has complete understanding of what is going on. Second, Anastasia establishes that the claimant is highly educated and has no disabilities, so cannot claim a lack of understanding in some way.

Third, Anastasia sets forth that the claimant provided wrong information on her weekly certifications, namely wages that went unreported.

Fourth, Anastasia indicates that the claimant understand that she failed to report wages accurately.

For the Department, unemployment fraud — aka concealment — is now established. That is all that is needed, as far as the Department is concerned (for why, see The profit in unemployment concealment.

But, Anastasia — being an experienced investigator — goes a step further and “engages” the claimant on why wages were not reported correctly. The confession for having fraudulent intent is this quotation:

It was an honest and stupid mistake. I was filing for PUA for my business only, not for the job where I worked full time and I thought they were asking about my business, my voice studio [MARIA CALLAS Productions Inc].

For the Department, the admission of an unintentional/negligent claim-filing mistake, for purposes of unemployment concealment, establishes an intent to commit fraud.

Of course, this admission is fabricated and what was actually said during this phone call was much, much different. In place of this alleged confession, the claimant presented solid evidence about how she told Department staffers about her work at ACME and was mistakenly told by them to NOT report those wages and hours of work when filing her weekly certifications for PUA benefits. Anastasia was not interested in that information about how the claimant was misled by the bad advice of Department staffers, however. Anastasia’s goal was to draft a “confession” to committing unemployment fraud, and so that is what Anastasia drafted.

At the hearings in these cases, administrative law judges are trained to follow the same agenda that Anastasia is following: the claimant understood what was going on, the claimant provided wrong information, the claimant admitted to being responsible for that wrong information, and the claimant was negligent. Should the claimant admit at the hearing to the “claimant statement” being true and accurate, the case is closed, and that is why claimants are almost always asked at these hearings about these statements being true and accurate. Without that admission, a “claimant statement” does not count as any actual evidence.

The saddest part of this episode is that what Anastasia did here is all too common. Indeed, the “advice” Anastasia offered about how the concealment charges would easily be dismissed at a hearing and that legal representation was completely unnecessary is something I often hear from claimants about these investigations. The only unique facet to what happened here is that the claimant herself took contemporaneous notes of her conversation with Anastasia and so could present those notes at her hearing about what really was said.

Note: And, those notes allowed the claimant to recall the details of that phone conversation that had taken place months prior to the unemployment hearing.

So, all parties to the unemployment process need to understand that truthfulness and accuracy are NOT the responsibility of the Department. As a result, you need to track independently what information is told to you and to be prepared to challenge at any time what a Department investigator or administrative law judge is telling you about what “actually” happened.

Claim filing after the pandemic

In late 2022, it is time to see what has happened in Wisconsin with unemployment claim-filing.

Note: The charts presented here are from the Unemployment Insurance Data Explorer, which takes DOL unemployment data obtained from the states and provides a quick way to see what this data means.

Why claims are denied

First, some basic facts need to be introduced. Far too many people think that unemployment claims are approved or denied because of a dispute over a job separation between employee and employer.

That has not been the case since the Great Recession, however. Since before 2014, most initial determinations have denied a claim for reasons that have nothing to do with a job separation reason.

The green line on this chart shows the proportion of initial determination denials that are based on a job separation reason. From 2013 to 2015, roughly 20% of denial reasons were because of a dispute over the job separation. By 2016, that percentage was down to just over 10% and stayed there until the pandemic. Then the percentage climbed steadily to around 30% of all denials. This increase was because the Department examined all lay-offs arising from the pandemic for a prior disqualifying separation within a claimant’s benefit year to find a reason for denying that pandemic-related layoff claim. Yes, even though experience-rating charges were supposed to be waived during the pandemic, the Department still looked for disqualifying reasons from a prior job loss in which to deny eligibility.

So, with the pandemic now over, denials based on separations have declined markedly. With the hot job market, separation reasons are now below 10%.

So, the real story of why claims are denied has nothing to with a dispute between employer and employee over the job separation. The red line showing non-separation reasons is where most denials now happen. In 2013, over 40% of the initial determinations denying a claim were for reasons that had nothing to do with a job separation, and this percentage began climbing steadily due to new job search requirements, the move to on-line only claims-filing for initial claims and weekly certifications, and confusing and legalistic guidance about claim-filing. By 2016 to 2017, that percentage had climbed to 60%, but fell back down to just over 50% by 2018 (with no change in the law, election year anyone?). In 2019, still without any changes in law, the percentage began climbing again and was back at around 60% when the pandemic started. Yikes.

With the pandemic, this percentage declined back down to 2013 levels of just over 40%. In 2021 and 2022, however, there has been a rapid rise in these non-separation denial reasons, and Wisconsin is back at around 60% of all initial determination denying eligibility for non-separation reasons.

So, for many years now, the hurdle for eligibility has had little to do with job separation reasons and much to do with satisfying Department claim-filing requirements.

The true significance of the role of non-separation reasons can be seen in what happens per initial claim.

Note: An initial claim is what a claimant files to report a job loss for which he or she wants to claim unemployment benefits. No benefits are paid, however, based on an initial claim. Claimants must then file weekly certifications (called continuing claims in other states) for each week they want to be paid unemployment benefits. Because initial claims start an unemployment claim, they measure job losses and the claimants affected by those job losses. Weekly certifications, on other hand, only measure the number of people still successfully filing unemployment claims or who are still seeking to file such claims.

Outside of a slight dip in the pandemic and a recent increase in 2022, the green line for separation reasons hardly changed at all. The red line for non-separation reasons, however, began to nearly double in 2015 from 25% to almost 50%. By 2018, this denial rate for initial claims had declined slightly to just over 40%. And, there was a steep decline that began in 2019 just before the pandemic struck, and that steep decline continued into the pandemic, such that in 2020 the denial rate was almost the same as the denial rate for job separations. Since then, however, the denial rate for non-separation reasons for initial claims has sky-rocketed and is nearing 80% by the end of 2022. Together with the separation denial rate for initial claims climbing slightly to 15% at the end of 2022 (a seasonal climb every fall because, you know, winter), nearly 95% of initial claims were being denied at the end of 2022. Wow!

Just what are non-separation reasons

So, separation reasons (misconduct, substantial fault, or quitting a job without good cause) are not why the Department is finding the vast majority of claimants not eligible for unemployment benefits. The real reason the Department is finding claimants not eligible for unemployment benefits has to do with non-separation reasons.

Non-separation reasons usually are reasons directly related to a claimant not satisfying Department-mandated eligibility requirements. Other than an increase in job searches (from two to four in 2011) and the Department-initiated end of winter work search waivers, these mandates have been unchanged legally since before 2010. What has changed significantly is how the Department has implemented these requirements. Here is what has been happening since 2013.

The red (able and available for work), yellow (satisfying job search requirements), and green (other) have gone up and down dramatically over the past ten years.

Since 2016, able and available requirements have led to nearly 30% of all determinations being a denial. This large number of denials is happening because the Department ignores its own legal requirements for determining able and available.

Since 2015, denials because claimants fail to satisfy job search requirements have hovered over 40% and even over 50% except for a rock-like drop at the end of 2021 (discussed below). The job search requirements are leading to all of these denials through a combination of factors, notably the fact that all job searches must be reported on weekly certifications, and that mandated RESEA training and job registration are on-line only, even though the on-line guidance and assistance for accomplishing these goals are meager at best.

Other denial reasons — a catchall category — was at an over 40% denial rate in 2013, but declined steadily to around 15% by 2017 outside of a significant bump to around 25%/30% when the pandemic started. This denial category has been declining since then, however, and is approaching 10% by the end of 2022.

The impact of these changes can truly be seen when looking at these reasons per initial claim.

Both the job search (yellow line) and able and available (red line) plunged when the pandemic started, only to begin steep climbs in 2021. By the end of 2022, able and available reasons were leading to the disqualification of nearly 25% of all initial claims and job search issues were leading to the disqualification of over 45% of initial claims. These two reasons alone account for approximately 65% of all initial claims being denied at the end of 2022.

To understand just what is going on with these numbers, here are Wisconsin’s actual numbers for the second quarters of 2020 (57,466 initial determinations issued) and 2022 (59,564 initial determinations issued).

        Able/Avail        Income    Suit.Work         Jobs          Referal     Other
         Eli   Den        Eli   Den     Eli Den     Eli        Den     Eli Den   Eli  Den
2020 133   9,195     0  5,095     169  59   112      33,623   0   0     282    8,798
2022 2,809 10,339  0    581      119  91   15,129 21,586   0   0     4,777 4,133

Thousands of claims were denied at the start of the pandemic because claimants failed to register themselves at the jobcenter website. See “Missed job center registration” at Unemployment delays, part 2. While Wisconsin waived actual job searches, the state did not waive this registration requirement, and so far too many people had their claims denied for this reason. With this data, we now have a number for those denied for failing to register: more than 33,000. Only at the end of 2020 did the Department realize this job registration snafu was its own fault and stopped processing denials for this reason for a short time (until job searches were re-instated). What happened in mid-2020 was an tidal wave of determinations on this one issue of failed job registration.

By the second quarter of 2022, job search requirements and RESEA training were back in place, so job registration is again just one of many ways a claimant can be disqualified. When they complete these requirements, an initial determination finding them eligible as of the date the requirement is completed is issued. Hence, there are thousands of initial determinations now finding claimants eligible after they are originally denied eligibility for a few weeks.

As obvious in this data, a great deal of work and effort by both the Department and claimants is being spent on these requirements because claimants do not understand what is required of them in the first place.

And, as for the able and available disqualifications, in these situations the Department is simply ignoring its own law and applying a disqualification as it understands it — a claimant must be able to work 32 or more hours in a week in order to qualify for unemployment benefits — rather than what the actual requirements pursuant to unemployment law are — a claimant must be able to work as many hours in a week as physically or mentally capable of working, and will be able and available for work even if that number is less than 32 hours in a week. Most claimants in Wisconsin with a disability are being denied eligibility for no legal reason.

Overall, what this data shows is that the vast majority of people in Wisconsin filing unemployment claims today are being denied eligibility, and these denials almost always are based on claimants failing to satisfy Department claim-filing requirements. That is the story of unemployment in Wisconsin.

Unemployment public hearing in 2022

The Department has announced three hours of public hearing on November 17th from 2 to 4 pm and from 5 to 6 pm for unemployment comments and feedback.

Prior registration for a specific session is required.

Comments can also be submitted by e-mail message to UILawChange@dwd.wisconsin.gov, an e-mail address that will only be active from November 9th to 18th.

Comments by regular mail can be mailed to:

Janell Knutson, Chair
Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council
P.O. Box 8942
Madison WI 53708

While not stated, it is apparent that these comments MUST be received by Nov. 18th.

Note: In either written or e-mailed comments, do NOT include social security numbers, birth dates, or phone numbers. As indicated below, no one from the Department will be following up with you, and these public hearing comments are not the forum for hoping that someone will address issues directly connected to your specific situation. In these public comments, you can explain your situation or the situation of others and how unjust or ridiculous it was and what needs to be fixed with claim-filing in general.

Past public hearings have seen an outpouring of public commentary. The 2016 public hearing was the first opportunity for public comment on the end of winter work search waivers.

A total of 295 people provided 307 comments by letter, e-mail or at the public hearing. The department received the majority of correspondence by letter (158 letters) or through e-mail (123 emails). A total of 51 people attended the public hearing in which 19 people testified, 6 people testified and provided written correspondence and 1 person registered an opinion, but did not speak. A majority of the correspondence was specific to an employer or industry and contained the same text. A tally of the comments showed 246 comments received related to [winter] work search waivers for recalled employees.

There was no reaction or recommended change to these hundreds of complaints at the Advisory Council meeting when these comments were presented, other than an explanation later posted on the Department’s work search FAQ (that has since been removed; PDF of original available here):

What is the policy basis for the requirement change?

The requirements are a result of a change in DWD’s administrative rules. These rules not only bring Wisconsin in line with more than half of all U.S. states and reaffirm the purpose of UI as delivering short-term assistance, but they also respond to employer concerns regarding the solvency of the UI Trust Fund’s balancing account. The change assures that Wisconsin’s UI law conforms to the federal requirement that state UI programs provide for an experience-rated UI tax system. This ensures fair and equitable financing of the payment of benefits among employers. By encouraging employees to find employment during their industry’s off season, fewer benefits are paid. This assists employers who have negative account balances and are taxed at the maximum UI tax rate. DWD, with the support of three separate committees in the Wisconsin State Legislature, restored the waiver limits that were in place prior to their repeal in 2004.

In short, winter work search waivers were ended because this change reduced the available unemployment benefits to claimants and so, in turn, reduced the unemployment taxes employers pay (less benefits paid means employers’ unemployment tax rates do not increase or even decline, since unemployment tax rates are based on the benefits paid out to the employees of an employer).

The 2018 public hearing was a tepid affair, with winter work search waivers again attracting the most attention.

As compared to the public hearing in November 2016 in which there were 300+ comments from 295 individuals, at the 2018 public hearing there were only 21 comments in toto. Given these few comments, the summary presented to the council at this meeting included not only a summary but the actual 21 comments that were made.

The November 2020 public hearing, on the other hand, was raw, emotional, and upsetting.

Numerous attendees indicated that Department staffers are hostile to claimants by always doubting what is being told to them, and that the whole process is simply dehumanizing. More than few attendees had to stifle tears in the midst of their testimony, in light of their anguish and desperation.

Questions cannot be answered, these attendees indicated, and answers when provided are too often contradictory. As one attendee described, the burden of proof is on her, and she is presumed to be attempting to scam the system until she can show by clear and convincing evidence that her claim for unemployment benefits is forthright.

The picture painted in this testimony is a Department no longer functioning as an unemployment agency but instead as a kind of welfare office trying to correct the “immorality” of claimants who want unemployment benefits rather than a job.

The enormous delays in eligibility determinations, how obvious pandemic-related claims were being denied, language and technology barriers to claim-filing, the SSDI eligibility ban, winter work search waivers, and the confusion between eligibility based on PUA benefits versus regular unemployment benefits also drew widespread concern and outrage at this public hearing.

Members of the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council received these 2020 public hearing comments at their January 2021 meeting. By August 2021, that outpouring of grief and outrage had still led to no action or even acknowledgment from council members:

To date, a Department summary and the actual written comments from the November 2020 public hearing were reported to council members at the 21 January 2021 council meeting. There has yet to be any discussion or even acknowledgment by council members of the concerns raised at that public hearing.

So, at present, while I encourage everyone concerned about unemployment to testify at the November 2022 public hearing coming up, I fear that all of that testimony and commentary will still be for naught. The last three public hearings have in general been ignored, and there is no indication that this practice will change suddenly.

Jobs data, unemployment, and a lack of wage growth

Jake has been providing excellent coverage about the current economic and jobs data and how wage growth here was been more of an illusion than a reality.

In July 2022, Jake reported that unemployment in Wisconsin has been at record lows — below 3% — but that job growth is stagnating.

What this indicates to me is that things are actually still very healthy in Wisconsin’s jobs market, but we still can’t find enough people at publicly facing service jobs to have a typical round of Summer hiring. Some of this may be wage-related, but I also think it is due to a demographic issue that the state has been dealing with for several years.

This is something touched on by the Wisconsin Policy Forum as part of a wider discussion of the changes in the state’s jobs market in the COVID era.

“In the past, we have discussed how Wisconsin’s aging population, low birth rate, and lackluster net migration figures have led to a reduction in the working-age population (here defined as individuals between the ages of 18 and 64). The Wisconsin Department of Administration projects the state’s working-age population will remain roughly the same size – if not decline slightly – until at least 2040.

“Indeed, from 2010 to 2019, Wisconsin’s working-age population declined by 1.0%. While the state’s overall adult population (ages 18 and older) is growing year-over-year, there is a much more rapid increase in those over the age of 65. In other words, Wisconsin’s residents are reaching a typical retirement age at a much faster rate than they are entering the workforce, shrinking the overall labor pool. On top of that, the pandemic caused more people to retire at earlier ages, and it is still unclear to what extent those retirees can be lured back into the workforce.”

All of this information indicates we have a state that seems to be maxed out on workers, and needs to find ways to attract more people to come here.

As confirmation of these findings, Jake previously noted that job growth in construction and manufacturing in Wisconsin has also been stagnating.

As Jake described in June 2022:

But even with another 54,500 jobs added in the state since May 2021, Wisconsin’s 1.9% rate of job growth is less than half the 4.5% rate of growth the nation has seen in that time period. And with 2.9% unemployment in a state that has labor participation more than 4% above the national average, it makes me wonder just how many more jobs can be added in the state today.

* * *

It also tells us that the longer-range challenge for the state is to get people to locate to a cold-weather place that traditionally hasn’t paid as much as nearby big markets like Chicago or the Twin Cities.

And, in May 2022, Jake was reporting about “gold-standard” job numbers in Wisconsin that:

So what the QCEW tells me is that our state still has jobs left to gain, but our 2.8% unemployment and relatively low population growth might mean there isn’t much more to gain back. The monthly jobs reports have been positive so far in 2022 (up by nearly 30,000), but let’s see if that growth in wages can start matching the US rate, and can keep workers ahead of the rising prices that we have seen in this year.

Like Wisconsin, Minnesota also has been experiencing record low unemployment. The Economic Policy Institute discusses this low unemployment rate in Minnesota and what it may actually mean.

First, the number of jobs that exist now is still less than what existed before the COVID-19 pandemic.

And yet, every single one of these states still had fewer jobs in June than before the pandemic. EPI’s Economic Indicators page shows that the United States is still down 524,000 jobs from its pre-pandemic peak. If we account for population growth over the last 2.5 years, the country has 3 million fewer jobs than we would expect if pre-pandemic trends had continued.

Second, labor force participation — the number of people working or looking for work, called an LFPR — is also down from what existed prior to the pandemic.

In Minnesota, the LFPR in February of 2020 was 70.8%. This was considerably above the national average of 63.4%, reflecting Minnesota’s strong employment numbers. By June of 2022, however, Minnesota’s LFPR had dropped 2.3 percentage points to 68.5%. That is larger than the national drop of 1.2 percentage points, from 63.4% to 62.2%. This means that while there is a historically low share of Minnesotans who say they’re looking for work and can’t find it, there is also a substantial share of adults in Minnesota who, since the pandemic hit, are no longer working and not looking for work. In fact, Minnesota’s decline in labor force participation from February 2020 to June 2022 is the 9th largest in the country.

Third, inflation is disconnected from these employment and unemployment numbers.

EPI’s Josh Bivens has explained in detail how current high levels of inflation are the result of global supply-chain problems caused by the pandemic and corporations exploiting the situation to extract larger profits than normal. If low unemployment was a primary driver of inflation, we would see an increase in wages above the rate of inflation, but the opposite is happening. Wages, far from contributing to price increases, are lagging behind price increases, and wage growth is decelerating significantly.

Fourth, the sectors of strong job growth are areas that are attracting new employees who previously were not looking for work at all.

In June, 73.1% of people who were newly employed were not counted as part of the labor force the month before. That is, according to the data, nearly three-quarters of the people who got a job in June weren’t looking for a job in May. This strongly suggests that there are many people interested in re-entering the labor force if there are good jobs available to them, jobs that allow them to balance work and care responsibilities, and jobs that adequately protect their health and safety.

Fifth, job growth, then, is highly dependent on policies that make what a few employers are doing to make work more flexible and to offer higher pay into a baseline for what all employers offer their employees. These policies include:

• expanded social and economic supports for child care and elder care
• criminal justice reforms that prevent arrest and conviction records from being used to deny employment opportunities
• economic support for affordable housing where jobs are located

Indeed, racial and ethnic disparities in job growth continue to exist at staggering levels.

Unemployment for Black workers continues to run nearly twice as high as that for white workers, and Hispanic workers have an unemployment rate 30% higher than white workers. These disparities persist—in both employment and wages—even when controlling for education and qualifications.

Sixth, because there is no actual connection right now between wages and inflation, higher wages in general are still urgently needed.

Simply put, higher wages attract people to the workforce. For example, shortages of teachers, school bus drivers, and other education employees are directly tied to the low wages of those jobs. States must also set higher wage benchmarks for home health care workers, too, as demand for those jobs is set to skyrocket in coming years. Additionally, supporting workers’ rights to organize unions is a vital tool in building a strong economy for all Americans.

Last, but by no means least, the minimum wage needs to be increased. Many states and cities have increased their minimum wages in recent years, with no discernible impact on the price of gas and oil, food, cars, or semiconductors. A federal $15 minimum wage would lift wages for tens of millions of low-wage workers across the country. In terms of purchasing power, the federal minimum wage is at its lowest level since 1956.

Unemployment legislation that failed to pass in Wisconsin

The state legislature has been pushing a host of unemployment reforms that actually make unemployment worse or provide little more than a talking point. See, e.g., Replacing unemployment with reemployment or Carrots or Sticks? Lawmakers can’t agree on how to help employers who can’t fill jobs.

The things that might make unemployment better, however, were almost universally ignored. Thanks to the Legislative Reference Bureau and its legislative tracking services, here are most of the bills that have now “died” in this legislative session.

• AJR149 and AJR24: Relating to: declaration of an Economic Justice Bill of Rights.
• SB547 and AB542: Relating to: eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits in the case of an unwillingness to receive a vaccine. See also No vaccine unemployment bill introduced for issues much more pressing than vaccine refusals.
• AB1128 and SB1053: Relating to: new enforcement mechanisms and penalties for misclassifcation of employees as independent contractors.
• AB294: Relating to: recovery of unemployment insurance benefit over-payments. This legislation would have applied an equity and good conscience standard to determine if a claimant could afford to repay overpaid unemployment benefits.
• AB380: Relating to: mandating the return of job search requirements for unemployment insurance and the suspension of the Department’s emergency job search waiver rule. Unnecessary in light of Job Searches are back.
• AB307: Relating to: unemployment insurance work-share programs. Work share was one of the few unemployment programs that Wisconsin did relatively well, and so failure to make some of the pandemic-related changes permanent is a major failure.
• AB268 and SB267: Relating to: providing a temporary state tax exemption for unemployment compensation for 2020 and 2021 state income taxes. Because far too many claimants were not paid until 2021 or are still waiting in 2022 for unemployment benefits dating from 2020, this income tax problem is becoming a major headache. The only relief available to claimants is at the federal level and only applies to those paid unemployment benefits in 2020. See Tax matters.
• AB206 and SB224: Relating to: extending waiver of the unemployment insurance one-week waiting period to Sept. 5, 2021, to take advantage of federal financing of these benefits for employers.
• SB138: Relating to: extending eligibility for federal extended unemployment benefits in Wisconsin.
• SB140: Relating to: creating a presumption that all initial claims are pandemic-related for the purposes of charging relief so as to provide tax relief for employers.
• SB899: Relating to: various changes proposed by the Department to the unemployment insurance law and making an appropriation. See the discussion of Proposals D21-02 and D21-03 at Department proposals, 2021 edition, and going back to 2019. Note: the rest of the Department’s proposals, contained in AB910, were passed by the legislature. For the questions that remain unanswered regarding these proposals, see D21-01 and D21-04 to D21-08 discussed in Department proposals, 2021 edition, and going back to 2019, a veto of AB910 should be forthcoming. These proposed changes are more “stick” than “carrot.”

Unemployment Delays, part 9 — The portal is NOT accurate

Note: Previous posts detailed the length of time and number of cases in the unemployment backlog in part 1, some of the mistakes by the Department that allow cases to be re-opened in part 2, a place for stories and advice about how to find assistance in part 3, how most claims in Wisconsin — and unlike in other states — are being denied and thereby creating a ginormous backlog in hearings in part 4, in part 5 how the Department’s big push to fix the backlog in December 2020 was creating a hearings backlog and not addressing the root causes of all the delays, in part 6 how a December 2020 push had cleared some of the back log with issuing initial determinations but that the hearings backlog was growing because most claims were being denied and that claimants were losing most of their hearings, how the phone support system still fails to operate effectively a year later in part 7, and a summary in part 8 of how poor policy choices and guidance by the Department have led to numerous delays and confusion.

Claimants ask me nearly every day about something appearing on their portal and wanting me to explain this portal issue. Frankly, no one can explain the portal because the information presented there is just NOT accurate or even understandable. Only if you understand unemployment law and what has happened in your case can the portal begin to make sense, and even then that outcome is a long shot.

To illustrate this confusion, let me present a pretty typical example of what claimants are experiencing and seeing with their unemployment claims.

Claimant Sue filed an initial claim for PUA benefits when her work schedule was reduced in April 2020 because of the pandemic. She had to apply for PUA benefits because she could not establish a benefit year (i.e., monetary eligibility) for receiving regular unemployment benefits, as she had not worked enough in 2019 (only a few weeks at a job before quitting).

A PUA benefit year calculation was issued on 24 July 2020 finding that her earnings were so low that she qualified for the minimum PUA weekly benefit rate of $163. She then filed a PUA weekly certification for the week her work was reduced, the week ending 4/11/2020, reporting 16 hours of work and $200 in earnings that week.

As with most PUA claimants, her PUA initial claim was then denied in a second initial determination that she appealed. The hearing in that case did not occur until May 2021. In that case, the administrative law judge ruled that she had a pandemic-related job loss but indicated that she might qualify for regular unemployment based on an alternative benefit year calculation and that she had to file a new initial claim for regular unemployment benefits back-dated to the week ending 4/11/2020. So, she “won” the hearing but no payment would be forthcoming until she did as directed.

Dutifully, that same month she called a claim specialists and filed an initial claim for regular unemployment benefits and then waited for a resolution.

In the meantime, however, the Department issued two more determinations finding (1) that the job she quit in July 2020 disqualified her from receiving unemployment benefits and (2) that the quit in July 2020 also disqualified her from receiving PUA benefits. Confused over what these new initial determinations meant, she appealed both and had hearings on both. The administrative law judge ruled against her in both cases and she appealed to the Labor and Industry Review Commission.

And, it turned out that the May 2021 attempt to file an initial claim for regular unemployment did not work (a second weekly certification for the same week was filed instead by mistake). So, in September 2021, when that mistake was discovered, another regular unemployment initial claim was filed.

Then, in November 2021, two benefit year calculations were issued, one for a traditional benefit year and another for an alternative benefit year. The traditional benefit year calculation found no eligibility for regular unemployment benefits. But, the alternative benefit year calculation found that Sue had established a benefit year with a weekly benefit rate of $71. Because her earnings in the week ending 4/11/2020 were $200, she earned too much that week relative to her $71 weekly benefit rate to receive any unemployment benefits that week. So, no PUA eligibility (because she had established eligibility for regular unemployment benefits) and no regular unemployment benefits paid out because she had too much earnings for the week being claimed.

The claimant’s portal, on the other hand, does not reflect this information. Here is the determinations history for Sue

There are six entries here, and this information is both incomplete and misleading. From top to bottom, here are the problems:

1. Determination for UI week 15/2020: This information is for the traditional benefit year calculation that found Sue did not establish a benefit year. There is no ability to see the actual document being described here. Furthermore, this document is moot, since an alternative benefit year calculation found Sue eligible for regular unemployment benefits with a weekly benefit rate of $71. But, there is no listing of that determination here.
2. Determination for UI week 31/2020: This determination is for the alleged denial of PUA benefits for a quit that occurred in July 2020. The text about “reviewing for additional wages to satisfy a suspension/denial” is a legalism that only makes sense to a person who knows that a quit without good cause means eligibility for unemployment benefits is suspended until a claimant earns 6x his or her weekly benefit rate in subsequent work. This legalism is nonsensical because the denial here is for PUA eligibility — whether a person has a qualifying pandemic-related job loss. So, none of this explanation provides any information that is helpful.
3. Determination for UI week 31/2020: This determination is for Sue quitting a job in July 2020 and that the Department found that she quit for reasons that would not allow for payment of regular unemployment benefits. The Department is NOT reviewing this information. It issued an initial determination finding that Sue quit without good cause, which Sue appealed, lost at a hearing, and which Sue then appealed to the Labor and Industry Review Commission.
4. Determination for UI week 15/2020: This determination is for PUA eligibility and reflects the decision of the administration of the administration law judge that was issued in May of 2021. The determination linked to here, however, found that the claimant did not have a pandemic-related job loss. The actual hearing decision, on the other hand, found Sue eligible for PUA benefits IF she could not establish benefit year eligibility for regular unemployment benefits. That hearing decision is NOT available on the portal. Sue just has to know that an appeal tribunal decision reversed this initial determination and that the reference to PUA eligibility in this entry is because of that hearing decision. The same confusing description of the issue from determination #2 is repeated here and is just nonsensical.
5. Determination for UI week 36/2019: Recall that Sue had a previous job for a few weeks in 2019 that she quit. As stated here, the Department concluded that Sue earned 6x her weekly benefit rate so that the disqualification no longer mattered. There is no actual initial determination document that can be viewed, however, and no way to know what weekly benefit rate was used by the Department in determining that this quit disqualification no longer mattered.
6. Determination for UI week 15/2020: The determination here is the one that found the claimant had no earnings and so qualified for the minimum PUA weekly benefit rate of $163. Determination #4, however, had over-turned this initial determination, but then a decision by an administrative law judge had over-turned that initial determination. So, this entry indicates that the claimant is eligible for PUA benefits and has not established enough earnings to qualify for regular unemployment benefits without dealing with any of the “issues” that came after it.

Because these entries are listed by UI week and not the actual initial determination numbers or in some kind of chronological ordering that connects to claimant’s actual work history or claim-filing history (rather than, as is happening here, when the Department first “decided” the issue), claimants can think all of these issues still apply to them in some way.

For instance, the Sues of the world will ask me to explain why they are not receiving PUA benefits because of entry #6 or entry #4 or entry #1. And, there is no way I can answer that kind of question without getting the actual history of what has happened with Sue’s claim-filing and unemployment litigation as initially described here.

But, the biggest problem here is that the alternative benefit year calculation that found Sue eligible for regular unemployment with a weekly benefit rate of $71 is missing in action.

The determinations and appeals information on the portal is just as confusing.

Recall that Sue filed three appeals of initial determinations and that one appeal was won in May 2021 at a hearing before an administrative law judge and that two other cases were appealed to the Labor and Industry Review Commission after she lost those hearings. This “appeals” page, however, has four entries: two determinations and two appeals. Here is how this information matches up with the determinations history page described above.

1. Determination for UI Week 31/2020: This entry matches entry #2 above under determinations history. As with that entry, the “quit” at the center of this case is nowhere to be found. This case, however, was appealed and, after a hearing, a decision by an administrative law judge affirming the initial determination was issued. That decision was subsequently appealed. See entry #3, below.
2. Determination for UI Week 31/2020: This entry matches entry #3 above under determinations history.
3. Appeal for UI Week 31/2020: This hearing information is for the PUA/quit case described in entry #1 of this page.
4. Appeal for UI Week 31/2020: This hearing information is for the quit case described in entry #2 of this page.

Notice that there is no information whatsoever about the PUA eligibility appeal and hearing decision in Sue’s favor’s in entry #4 under determinations history. Since this case is excluded from Sue’s portal, it is apparent that the Department has concluded that this case is no longer significant, even though it is this case which drives the Department to allow Sue to file late initial claims for regular unemployment benefits and to eventually find that she qualifies for regular unemployment benefits using an alternate benefit year calculation.

Indeed, Sue’s UI benefit summary only makes sense in light this missing appeal information.

Nothing on this UI Summary Page makes sense in light of the other two screenshots from the portal. Here, Sue can see that she qualifies for a weekly benefit rate of $71 for a benefit year that goes from 4/5/2020 to 4/3/2021 and that her “status” for the weekly certification filed for the week 4/5/2020 to 4/11/2020 is “Earned Too Much Money.” Interestingly, the statement here under “Issues and Determinations” about “You have determinations preventing payment.” is wrong. As stated under “Payment Information,” Sue would have received regular unemployment benefits if she had not earned too much money that week. The portal does not explain or identify in any way how she is now eligible for regular unemployment benefits at the rate of $71 per week.

All that Sue can see is that she is denied eligibility and that she has pending appeals. From this information, Sue thinks that her current appeals, if won, will lead to the payment of PUA benefits.

In another sense, all of this confusion and misdirection is to be expected. The Department itself declares that the portal cannot be relied on as accurate. Click on the link on the bottom of the screen for Legal/Acceptable Use. At this new page, scroll down to the disclaimers and read (emphasis supplied):

Disclaimer of Warranties And Accuracy of Data

Although the data found using the State of Wisconsin’s access systems have been produced and processed from sources believed to be reliable, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made regarding accuracy, adequacy, completeness, legality, reliability or usefulness of any information. This disclaimer applies to both isolated and aggregate uses of the information. The State provides this information on an “as is” basis. All warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, freedom from contamination by computer viruses and non-infringement of proprietary rights are disclaimed. Changes may be periodically made to the information herein; these changes may or may not be incorporated in any new version of the publication. If you have obtained information from any of the State’s web pages from a source other than the State pages, be aware that electronic data can be altered subsequent to original distribution. Data can also quickly become out of date. It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data associated with a file and that the originator of the data or information be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, we encourage you to report them to Wisconsin.gov.

Here is a complete PDF of these policies. Through this disclaimer, the Department is specifically denying that any information on the portal can be considered accurate, complete, reliable, or even useful as to your unemployment claim or unemployment law in general.

Given how inaccurate the portal actually is, this disclaimer makes sense. Indeed, if the Department disclaims any requirement to provide claimants with accurate information, then why in the world should claimants think that this information is accurate in the first place? Maybe they shouldn’t.

Council meetings in the new year — January 2022

When the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council last met on 21 October 2021, not much was decided or even reckoned with.

Other than the trust fund balance being $963 million and approval of a draft UI bill, LRB 4438 (unchanged from what was introduced in the September 2021 meeting), nothing much was discussed or decided. Council members even decided to cancel their remaining meetings for November and December.

The big news was that Mark Reihl, UI division head from before the pandemic started, announced his retirement, as of early November 2021.

The pattern continues into 2022, when the council met on January 20th.

Job centers need to be open to the public

A letter from a resident of the southern Lake Winnebago area about job centers being closed to the public and how public libraries are inadequate was met with a reference to how Wisconsin libraries received a grant to do advertising and additional support for job support services at Wisconsin libraries. Ignored in this response is the actual complaint in the letter about how job search support at libraries is inadequate and not meeting the Department’s statutory responsibility to provide support at its own job centers. Furthermore, the confusion and inadequacies of the on-line claim-filing system makes turning to librarians extremely difficult — both for claimants and librarians — when unintentional claim-filing mistakes lead to concealment charges from the Department.

Covid-19 is perhaps worse now than when the pandemic started. But, if job search requirements and claim-filing are to continue pretending that the pandemic does not really exist anymore, then the least the Department can do is open its job centers so that claimants can get the help they actually need. I know that people are leaving jobs because some (maybe more than some) employers are ignoring safety standards and pretending the pandemic no longer exists. The Department is making things worse for claimants struggling in this atmosphere by pushing claimants to on-line only claim-filing, and ill-equipped librarians who do not understand all the complexities and confusions of the on-line claim-filing process is simply asking too much of people who are not directly involved.

For instance, the Department’s job search requirements are quite specific, and many actions people think as qualifying as a job search do not actually qualify. Unless the Department is going to demonstrate how it is training librarians about how to assist confused claimants with understanding the Department’s very specific job search requirements (let alone all of the other “issues” that can catch claimants into making mistakes), then saying talk to a librarian is little more than Calvinball.

Financial report

The unemployment trust fund is back over a billion (indeed, $1.1 billion). Left unremarked on was that in 2021 payment of regular unemployment benefits plummeted to nearly one-third of what was seen in 2020: $583.1 million versus $1,464.7 million. Given that the pandemic still exists and that employees — even in Wisconsin — are leaving jobs at record numbers in 2021, this startlingly drop in payment of regular unemployment benefits indicates that many of the old practices at the Department are re-asserting themselves.

Job searches, as noted above, are extremely difficult to complete to the Department’s satisfaction. Furthermore, all claimants will have their job searches eventually audited (claimants must keep their job searches for one year, and Department staffers tell me that they are under pressure to make sure every claimant gets some of his or her job searches audited within that one-year time frame).

New faces

Jim Chiolino, a mainstay in all kinds of Department operations for the last several decades, is now head of the UI division. Tom McHugh, treasurer of the unemployment trust fund, retired as of January 10th. He will be missed.

Also, Kathy Thornton-Bias joined the council as a management representative for non-profits, replacing Theresa Hillis from the Eau Claire YMCA.

New rules

EmR2125 for waiving benefit charges related to pandemic job losses and for compensating reimbursable employers for their pandemic-related job losses (reimbursable employers like non-profits and government entities pay dollar-for-dollar for unemployment benefits paid to their former employees) continues to be in effect until March 2nd/April 24th of this year.

The Department presented Council members with a highly technical rule change for switching Wisconsin’s regulations from the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) industry classification codes to North American Industry Classifications System (NAICS) industry classification codes — the stuff that labor economists dream about — as well as several other technical changes and corrections.

After caucusing, Council members approved of this new rule.

The Labor and Industry Review Commission also presented to Council members the Commission’s proposed new rules. These proposed rules mostly update Commission procedure in light of all the procedural changes to unemployment law the past few years as well as some less extensive changes to workers’ compensation law during these past years. The only change of note in the unemployment context is that answers to petitions for review in unemployment cases now need to be filed in 14 days rather than 21 days. As answers are rarely filed and usually unnecessary, this change does not raise major concerns (unless increasing delays in mail service make the 14 day window unworkable).

New laws

There was a short presentation on AB691, a bill that would declare that the required use of any safety equipment could not serve as evidence that an operator of a motor vehicle (yes — any motor vehicle, not just truck drivers) could be classified as an employee for purposes of workers’ compensation law, unemployment law, minimum wage law, and wage law. Yikes.

Finally, after caucusing, Council members provided their stamp of approval on two other LRB drafts of the agreed upon bill, LRB-5584 and LRB-5585.For what these bills do, see Advisory Council meeting in August 2021. After caucusing, Council members approved of these draft bills.

SSDI recipients should now apply for regular unemployment benefits

A class action challenging the SSDI eligibility ban in Wisconsin that prevents disabled workers from receiving regular unemployment benefits has been filed. Note: A history of the SSDI eligibility ban in Wisconsin is available here.

With the end of PUA benefits after the week ending 4 September 2021, regular unemployment benefits are again the only option available to disabled workers in Wisconsin. The Department had previously concluded that PUA benefits were available to SSDI recipients because of the SSDI eligibility ban for regular unemployment benefits.

SSDI recipients interested in the class action and eventually receiving regular unemployment benefits for job losses that are not their fault need to do two things.

1. File an initial claim and then weekly certifications for regular unemployment benefits. Do not let Department staffers talk you out of filing these initial claims and weekly certifications. You will be denied, and you should appeal that denial. At your unemployment hearing submit a copy of this brief about why the SSDI eligibility ban discriminates against you because of your disability. Note: Prior to the hearing date, you will need to print and mail in to the hearing office a copy of this brief with your name, hearing number, and social security number on the first page.
2. Do not fall victim to the Department’s mishandling of its own able and available requirements. If asked by a staffer in a phone call or by an administrative law judge during a hearing or on an initial claim or weekly certification about your ability to work more than 32 hours in a week or your availability for more than 32 hours of work in week, answer “yes” to both questions. As currently being asked, these questions CONFLICT with Wisconsin unemployment law and so are invalid questions.

Because of the pandemic, you may lack sufficient earnings during the last year to establish a benefit year. But, you should still file initial claims and weekly certifications. When the SSDI eligibility ban is overturned and you finally can establish a benefit year, you will then be owed unemployment benefits for the weekly certifications now being denied by the Department. So, file away.

Replacing unemployment with reemployment

Rep. Petryk, Rep. Penterman, and Sen. Roth have proposed a major revamp of unemployment support that would re-make the Department of Workforce Development into a government-sponsored job coach that would, presumably, guide claimants to new jobs.

In place of a free labor market, where claimants get to make their own decisions about which jobs to apply to and how to go about searching for work, these politicians want to mandate government involvement and even control of claimants’ job search efforts. Here is what they propose.

• The Department must provide claimants with four potential job opportunities, one or more of which could be a temporary help company. Claimants who do not apply for work with that temp company are likely to lose their eligibility for unemployment benefits.
• RESEA training will be mandatory for all claimants. This requirement is already understood as required by the Department, but this proposal removes any discretion and makes attending a job search training seminar mandatory for all claimants who seem likely to exhaust their eligibility.
• That drug testing for claimants must be implemented by the Department. As previously noted, this drug testing would require the Department to provide drug treatment counseling as well for those who test positive or fail to appear for a drug test.
• As of a claimant’s second weekly certification, claimants must have a resume on the Job Center of Wisconsin website. This requirement already exists for every claimant’s benefit year, however, per the job registration requirement. See Laura Hoffman, UI Hearing No.17002961MW (16 Nov. 2017) (claimant must complete job registration requirement within 14 days of initiating a claim for unemployment benefits). So, this proposal is nothing more than shortening the requirement to seven days.
• Starting with the third week claimed, two of a claimant’s four job searches must be job applications or job interviews.
• When there are three weeks of unemployment benefits left in a claimant’s benefit year, the claimant must attend a reemployment counseling session with a Department staffer.
• The Department must compile reports regarding claimants’ job experience for the three years after the claimant first receives unemployment benefits. This part of the proposal is likely to run afoul of federal claimant confidentiality requirements. To the extent that this request reflects general job experience and claimant experience broken down by county or region, there is nothing preventing such a general report from being prepared by the Department right now.

As the sponsors of this proposal explain in their introductory memo about the changes they propose:

* Requiring the Department of Workforce Development to engage in universal workforce assessments and reemployment services by providing individuals early access to customized workforce services to get them access to employment services at the start of the UI claim.

o This means claimants will receive an online career readiness assessment when starting their claim to identify their career skills and talents.

o DWD will then use this information to develop a personalized employment plan for the individual.

o Require the claimant to participate in services to help complete their employment plan, like resume writing workshops, soft-skills training, and employment workshops.

Perhaps the most odious change being proposed is to add the following language in a proposed Wis. Stat. § 108.01(2m) as a fundamental goal of unemployment benefits:

The Social Security Act requires that, in order for an individual to be eligible for reemployment assistance benefits, the individual must be able to work, available to work, and actively seeking work. The reemployment assistance program in Wisconsin should enact and focus on policies that complement individuals’ efforts to find employment.

There has been a great deal of litigation in other states who ended their PUC and PUA and PEUC benefits prematurely under the pretense that these programs kept the unemployed from finding jobs. Litigation has been lost in some of those states that had a reemployment provision similar to the one being proposed here. Courts found that reemployment, rather than financial support after a job loss, meant that states had to end these programs prematurely. So, this proposal in essence is to make it easier for a state to end future federal emergency benefits under the guise of reemployment.

Note: To reinforce the importance of reemployment over unemployment, the majority of the proposed bill is concerned with changing the name of unemployment to reemployment.

The only helpful change in this proposal is to expand the earnings disregard to $30 or 40% of a claimant’s weekly benefit rate, whichever is greater, for calculating a claimant’s partial benefit. For example, a claimant with a weekly benefit rate of $250 would have an earnings disregard $100 rather than the current $30. So, weekly earnings of $90 would mean the claimant would keep all $250 in unemployment benefits that week, and weekly earnings of $400 would mean the claimant would still receive $49 in unemployment benefits that week. Unfortunately, this proposal keeps the $500 wage cap in place, so a claimant still loses all eligibility when earnings wages of $500 or more.

Note: The proposal also includes bonuses to employers for hiring long term unemployed workers. Such efforts are generally considered ineffectual or even foolish.

In short, this proposal seeks to make a government agency into an entity that micro-manages claimants’ job search efforts. Free-market Republicans are certainly not behind this proposal. Rather than creating an environment by which claimants could educate themselves and improve their job skills, this proposal is mainly concerned with forcing job searches down the throats of claimants so as to create a pool of labor for temp companies to draw on. Say what you want about the big government plans of Ted Kennedy, but he never sought to turn government into a mechanism for attacking working people when they are down and jobless.

Advisory Council meeting in September 2021

At the September 16th Advisory Council meeting, a new employer representative appeared, as David Bohl, general counsel to J. H. Findorff & Sons, replaced John Mielke of ABC-Wisconsin.

Note: As of October 18th, however, John Mielke is still listed as a council member.

At this meeting, the Department provided the following information to council members:

• A letter from Secretary-designee Pechacek asking the Advisory Council to approve another program integrity assessment (estimated to be $3.3 million). Left out of this letter is that the program integrity fund, as of August 2021 (see line 228), already has $19,444,000. Regardless, the council approved of this additional assessment.
• Presented SB545, a proposed bill to legalize marijuana. Under this bill, employees who test positive for marijuana use and who are then discharged would not be disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits.
• Presented SB547, a proposed bill to allow people who refuse vaccinations to qualify for unemployment benefits (discussed here).
• Introduced a future emergency regulation (now available as EmR2125) that extends the time for recharging of unemployment benefits to employers’ accounts or the balancing account until 30 June 2022 and continues to waive any interest charges for reimbursable employers. After caucus, Council members voiced their support for this new emergency regulation. In general, charging relief for pandemic-related job losses needs to be requested because only a few kinds of job losses are presumed to be pandemic-related. But, the deadline for those requests expired as of 14 May 2021. Only for new, back-dated pandemic-related claims are charging relief requests still viable,
• A draft of the proposed unemployment bill, based on what council members previously agreed on at their August 2021 meeting.
• An updated research response addressing management concerns raised at the August Council meeting regarding the labor reps’ proposed increase in the weekly benefit amount.

The Financial Report for this month indicates that benefit payments are now around half of what they were a year ago, that the unemployment taxes employers pay continue to decline because of fewer claims being paid, and that the unemployment trust fund balance was nearly $950 million.

At the end of the meeting, Council members informed the Department that the remaining Department proposals would NOT be enacted and that agreement on the labor and management proposals was not likely as well.