PUA Unemployment Insurance, April 2020-August 2021. US and Oregon Data/Rankings on Admin Costs, Overpayments, and Fraud.

In response to a public record request I have received copies of all the monthly PUA reports submitted by OED to the US Department of Labor from April 2020 to August 2021.

I have combined those in one PDF file HERE. 

In addition I have downloaded all available PUA data for all states from the Department of Labor, covering some $121 billion in PUA payments.  I imported that data into a template I created that substitutes names for column numbers.

The Excel workbook I created HERE includes all of that data, a pivot table, and some summary worksheets. 

One of the worksheets allows a side by side comparison of selected data fields for up to four states and included rankings on admin costs, overpayments, and fraud identification and collections.  I have pasted a summary chart below that compares Oregon to California, Idaho, Washington and the US totals. 

Some Oregon PUA observations, April 2020 to August 2021 

Oregon paid out $994 million, covering 4.6 million weeks. That works out to an average of $216 a week. (and doesn't include the $600 or $300 supplemental FPUC payment).

Overpayments identified were $3.3 million; none of that has been reported as collected.  

PUA Admin costs were $31 million, or 9.5 times the amount of overpayments identified. 

PUA identified fraud cases covered 3,913 weeks, that's .08% of the 4.6 million total PUA weeks compensated. None of the reported $844K in PUA fraud was reported as collected.

Note: Some states have not reported PUA data for months. Out of 17 possible reports Puerto Rico has reported 5, Florida 6, and Alabama 9.

I asked OED a related question about plans to release information about fraud prevention and PUA; here's the question and answer. 

Q2. Is there any planned date or event (legislative or otherwise) when OED will be issuing any data on overpayments and fraud detection (I have asked this before and no date has yet been identified).

Employment departments across the country were vulnerable to fraud while temporary federal benefit programs were open, so we chose not release information that fraudsters could exploit and use to file fraudulent claims.

Although the last day to claim PUA benefits was for the week ending Sept. 4, the last day people could file an initial PUA claim and file for retroactive weeks was yesterday, Wed., Oct. 6. We need time to process those remaining claims, close out the PUA program and analyze reports.

 We estimate that the earliest we will start releasing fraud-related data is late November/early December. We do not have any planned event at this time.

Courtesy, Oregon Housing Blog.