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ILLINOIS
RANKS 7TH WORST IN U.S. FOR PANDEMIC UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE ROLLOUT
Illinois Policy Institute/
Patrick Andriesen
Illinois was among the nation’s worst for
delays in helping gig workers and the self-employed receive pandemic
assistance unemployment payments, a federal audit found. Rampant fraud
and inadequate reporting was also discovered nationwide. |
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 Illinois forced its self-employed and independent workers to
wait an average of 48 days to receive federal benefits, according to an audit by
the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General. That was the
seventh-slowest delivery of benefits in the nation.
The national Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program was established in March
2020 to provide benefits to idled workers who did not qualify for traditional
unemployment benefits, such as gig workers and the self-employed. Illinois had
no mechanism in place to distribute the benefits and an outdated computer
system.
 The $22 million no-bid contract to improve the system and create a call center
immediately exposed the Social Security numbers and other private information of
nearly 32,500 unemployed Illinoisans. The system also left as many as 156,000
people awaiting callbacks about their benefits.
“This report is confirmation of the unrealistic expectations put on states at
the onset of the pandemic and the difficulties all states faced implementing
brand new federal programs in an extremely difficult timeframe,” a spokesperson
for the Illinois Department of Employment Security responded in a statement to
CBS 2. “We’re happy that USDOL OIG conducted this audit and recognizes the
difficulty states had rolling out these programs, which have served as a vital
economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Besides benefits for self-employed workers, federal benefits provided $600 a
week extra for them and for traditional unemployed workers as well as an extra
13 weeks of benefits for workers whose benefits ran out. The audit found all
states had trouble implementing at least one of the three programs.
On average, states took 38 days to make the first payment to the self-employed,
25 days to make the first $600 payment and 50 days to make the first payment to
workers whose benefits expired. Illinois took 48 days to make the first
self-employed payment, 10 days for the extra $600 and 25 days to deliver
extended benefits.
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The federal audit stated delayed payments caused
claimants to miss bill payments, deplete their savings, borrow at
high interest rates, have difficulty putting food on the table and
left some homeless.
At least $39 billion in CARES Act unemployment money was improperly
paid and wasted nationwide by Jan. 2, 2021. That was about 10% of
the total paid out. The audit found nearly $5.4 billion of those
funds were lost to fraud.
It also discovered 40% of states failed to conduct required benefit
payment control crossmatches and 88% did not perform requested
checks to detect and deter improper payments.
Ultimately, the audit faulted old systems, insufficient staff size
and unclear guidance from the federal Employment and Training
Administration. The administration provided $200 million to states
to hire staff and improve fraud detection.
“IDES is one of many states still quantifying a dollar amount
attributable to identity theft-related fraud. This number is
reportable to DOL and will be made available when that number has
been identified,” the IDES spokesperson stated.
IDES has been plagued by problems and has left many frustrated
during the COVID-19 economic downturn. Its offices have been closed
to the public for more than 450 days as 16,455 calls were awaiting
an answer on May 28. There were 422,093 Illinoisans still receiving
unemployment benefits as of May 15.
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