News and Views on Politics, Policy and More
The Arkansas Department of Workforce Services has released the latest jobs numbers for the state and they just couldn’t be happier with themselves. The Arkansas unemployment rate has dropped to 7.2%! This is great news for our economy, right? A real recovery! Max Brantley hasn’t been this excited since Mark Martin got elected. But let’s dig a little deeper into these employment numbers and see what we find. In their press release, DWS says: Arkansas’ civilian labor force … [Read more...]
A long-awaited audit of the state unemployment insurance (UI) program was the focus of a legislative hearing Tuesday, and since that's been a subject of interest here on The Arkansas Project lo these many months, I strolled over to see what was going down. You'll recall in September of last year, a U.S. Dept. of Labor report indicated that Arkansas had made an estimated $161 million in "improper" UI payments from 2007-2010. The Dept. of Workforce Services (DWS), which administers … [Read more...]
Here it is a Monday in November and you're just sitting there thinking, "Gee, I wonder how Arkansas is doing on spending its share of economic stimulus funding, as provided under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)? If only there were some way for me to check on that!" I know that is probably what you are thinking, right now. Hey, lookee there! The state recently issued its latest quarterly progress report on stimulus spending in Arkansas (PDF), and it is just a testament … [Read more...]
Ugh, the Arkansas unemployment insurance (UI) system, what a mess, am I right, people? What, oh, what could ever be done to fix such a terrible program, that is what you are sitting around wondering today, right now. You need wonder no longer, because the crackerjack policy wonks at the Tax Foundation have published an extensive new report focusing on insolvency in state unemployment insurance programs and what can be done to address the problem. You know it's authoritative because it is 32 … [Read more...]
The nightmare that is the state unemployment insurance program has slipped from the front pages, so let's check in to remind ourselves what's going on there, and what happens next. As you'll recall, last month we learned that the federal government had identified an estimated $161 million in improper unemployment payments issued by Arkansas government from 2008-2011. The state Dept. of Workforce Services, which administers the unemployment program, has argued that it wasn't that … [Read more...]
This story about the Arkansas Dept. of Workforce Services making $161 million in improper unemployment payments has opened up some swell reportage and commentary from around the state. A sample: John Lyon at the Arkansas News Bureau contributed this nice issue primer based on department officials announcing that they were studying the overpayments to determine the extent of the problem. Our friend Michael Tilley of The City Wire in Fort Smith published the cri de coeur of a small business … [Read more...]
A lot of interest from our post yesterday about the federal government's report that Arkansas had made more than $161 million in improper unemployment insurance payments over the last three years. So much so, in fact, that the question of just what happened to all that cash was a matter of interest to state lawmakers, who grilled Artee Williams, the director of the state Department of Workforce Services, at a legislative hearing this morning as to what the hell was going on. Williams didn't … [Read more...]
From the department of waste, fraud and abuse: New data from the U.S. Department of Labor tells the sad tale of how states made some $19 billion in "improper" unemployment benefits over the last three years. In Arkansas, that total runs to more than $161 million in erroneous payments from 2008-2011, according to DOL. The lion's share of the erroneous payments, 63 percent, were made to people who continued receiving benefits after they had gone back to work, when they were no longer … [Read more...]
