Unemployment Insurance (UI) is one of the most important social benefits and worker protections in the U.S. economy. The economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated both the reward of getting earned benefits to jobless people during an emergency and the price of systemic shortcomings and failure. A new paper from the Heldrich Center describes the policy changes, business practices, and technology innovations that the State of New Jersey is employing to ensure that the right people get UI benefits accurately and on time. The paper also describes the political and policy reasons for why New Jersey consistently performs among the top states in benefits access and wage replacement.

The paper was written by Michele Evermore, a leading national expert on UI. Michele is a Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation and a Visiting Non-resident Scholar at the Heldrich Center. The Families and Workers Fund provided funding to support this research.