Unemployment Insurance Oversight

What this funds

The resources requested will help ensure the Department maintains Federal administration and oversight of the UI system. The pandemic highlighted the impacts of a lack of adequate staff overseeing this critical program. In February 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) continued to include the UI program on the GAO's list of designated high-risk programs and recommended that the Department continue to pursue transformative improvements to the program. Staff support is critical to the Department's ability to pursue necessary transformative improvements. The resources requested will support continuity of operations in the following core areas of administering UC programs: Staff supporting strategies to prevent, detect, and recover fraud and improper payments in the UI programs. Guidance, technical assistance, and training to States regarding strategies to prevent, detect, and recover improper payments, including Benefit Payment Control. Oversight and performance of key functions related to the UC programs, including developing guidance and technical assistance resources for States, ensuring appropriate corrective actions are taken when needed to hold States accountable for program administration, and overseeing the administrative funding provided to States. Proper review and analysis of the significant amount of information States are reporting on activities during the pandemic and its aftermath. Guidance, technical assistance, and training to States regarding program performance, with the goal of improving the UC programs' performance and enhancing system integrity. The Department's staff continues to work with State Workforce Agencies (SWAs) to reduce fraud and improper payments, as fraud schemes have evolved since the onset of the pandemic and the subsequent economic recovery. ETA continues to develop strategies focused on prevention, detection, and recovery of improper payments. The Department will also continue to work with States to reduce improper payments by pursuing strategies that will provide States with additional monitoring, technical assistance, and systems support. The Department also oversees and provides technical assistance for State implementation of the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA) program authorized by Congress in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The RESEA program focuses on strategies to ensure the integrity of the UI program and identifies evidence-based strategies that assist UI claimants to connect to the broader workforce system and return to work more quickly. RESEA provides funds to States to better serve UI claimants at American Job Centers by conducting an eligibility review and developing a reemployment plan that connects them to appropriate reemployment services. The latest available research on the RESEA program found that it reduces the average duration of UI benefit receipt by 1.8 weeks for participating claimants, resulting in significant levels of benefit savings. In summary, in FY 2027 Federal staff will: Award, monitor, and oversee over $3,200,000,000 in grants to 53 SWAs; PA - 27 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE OVERSIGHT Monitor and oversee ongoing ARPA and CARES Act grants, over $1,500,000,000 in RESEA grants, and over $10,000,000,000 in active UI grants provided to States prior to FY 2026; For RESEA grants, develop and issue operating guidance, determine and award outcome grants, and monitor the operations of the program; Provide direct oversight and technical assistance to SWAs enhancing the timely delivery of benefits, the quality of adjudications and appeals decisions, and the overall operations of the UI system; Provide direct oversight and technical assistance to SWAs enhancing the prevention, detection, and recovery of fraudulent and improper payments; Formulate, communicate, and analyze UI policies; and Work with States to align State laws and operating procedures in conformity and compliance with Federal laws and regulations.

Extracted from Employment and Training Administration, p. 10. Verbatim; nothing here is paraphrased.

Contracts funded by this line

2 linked contracts. These are obligations — lifetime awarded money — and they are not comparable to the request above and are never added to it. No total is shown: an award linked to several lines is counted in full on each, so the sum would not be a fact.

Confidence mix · 2 medium

Linked contracts are a floor, not a census. Coverage is bounded by how distinctively a program is named and, for performer links, to RDT&E and Procurement — O&M and military construction publish no performers. Budget figures are FY2027 request dollars; contract figures are obligations. The two measure different things and must never be summed together.

Ask this budget line

Answers come from the figures on this page and nothing else. These dollars are parsed from Labor's Congressional Justification and are approximate — confirm anything that matters against the cited page.