Hirono Announces Over $11 Million in Funding for Unemployment Insurance Modernization in Hawaii

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, announced that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is awarding more than $11 million to the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DLIR) to update its Unemployment Insurance (UI) system. The UI Information Technology modernization grants, made possible by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), will be used to update state UI technology systems to ensure they are user-friendly, accurate in determining and distributing unemployment benefits, and better able to prevent UI-related fraud.

“The COVID-19 pandemic showed us all the critical importance of a robust, responsive Unemployment Insurance system,” said Senator Hirono. “As we work to modernize our UI system in Hawaii, this much-needed funding will help update outdated systems in order to increase efficiency in processing unemployment insurance claims and protect against fraud.”

During the pandemic, historic job losses worsened existing issues in the unemployment insurance system, as states had problems processing unemployment insurance claims due to outdated IT systems, causing delayed payments, increases in fraud, and substantial disparities in benefit payments according to race and ethnicity. Prior to the pandemic, DOL regularly reported billions of dollars in improper payments in UI, and from 2020 to 2021, it reported an increase from $8 billion in improper payments, to $78.1 billion.

As part of ARPA passed in 2021, DOL was provided $2 billion for Unemployment Insurance Modernization with the goals to detect and prevent fraud, ensure timely payment of benefits, and to promote equitable access to unemployment insurance resources. Made possible through ARPA, this funding will help to ensure that recipients can adopt new strategies for updating their unemployment insurance systems, better protect against fraud, and make the systems easier to maintain and use.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Senator Hirono has been a vocal advocate for unemployment benefits, working to ensure that people can fully access the resources they are entitled to, especially during the pandemic. In February 2021, Senator Hirono cosponsored the Unemployment Insurance Technology Modernization Act, legislation that would establish one set of technology and security capabilities for state unemployment offices. In 2020, Senator Hirono requested support from Small Business Administration Administrator and the Treasury Secretary for small businesses with 10 or fewer employees to make sure these businesses can fully access coronavirus relief programs. In 2020, Senator Hirono joined her colleagues in calling for DOL to work with states to address the alarming delays in processing Unemployment Insurance benefits.

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