New Jersey’s Worker-centered
Approach to Improving the
Administration of
Unemployment Insurance
by Michele Evermore
September 2023
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
1
Contents
Introduction 2
The New Jersey Approach: Small Fixes for Big Gains 3
New Jersey’s UI Modernization History 6
The Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in New Jersey 7
New Jersey’s UI Modernization Landscape and
Important Players During COVID-19 8
Traditional Approaches to UI Modernization 10
New Jersey’s Agile and Human-centered
Design Approach 11
New Jersey’s Prioritization of Translation 12
The New Jersey UI Modernization Approach 13
Underlying UI Policy and Access Issues 13
Conclusion 14
End Notes 15
Appendix 16
About the Author 20
Acknowledgments 20
About the Heldrich Center 20
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
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Introduction
Unemployment Insurance (UI) is one of the most important
social benefits and worker protections in the U.S. economy.
The economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic
demonstrated, in all 53 states and territories, both the
reward of getting earned benefits to jobless people during
an emergency and the price of systemic shortcomings and
failure. This paper describes the policy choices, business
practices, and technology innovations that the State of
New Jersey is employing to ensure that the right people get
benefits — accurately and on time. Additionally, this paper
describes the political and policy reasons for why New
Jersey consistently performs among the top states in
benefits access and wage replacement as shown in Figures
1 and 2.
It is worth noting that innovations will do little to improve
access to benefits if the policies are not in place that
entitle people to benefits. If the program is structured to
limit benefits to the unemployed despite employers, and
Figure 1: Percent of Unemployed Workers Receiving UI
Figure 2: Replacement of Prior Income
“...We’re taking a worker-centered approach to solving UI issues that have been plaguing eligible workers around the country,
finally engaging actual New Jerseyans for their feedback as they test our solutions...These initiatives will increase user
confidence while reducing their time spent filing an application, reduce the risk of triggering agent intervention that delays
claims, and provide additional self-service features as the need arises to speed up processing.”
- New Jersey Department of Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo
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New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
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sometimes workers, having paid into the system, no amount
of technological innovation can overcome state legislatures
limiting coverage in statute.
To better understand what has worked to make New
Jersey’s program so accessible, this paper’s author visited
the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce
Development (NJDOL) and interviewed several key state
workers at NJDOL and in the Office of Innovation, as well as a
representative from the Communication Workers of America,
the union that represents UI workers; claimant advocates;
vendors; and U.S. Digital Response. This paper is a synthesis
of findings from those interviews.
For decades, states have grappled with modernizing their
unemployment benefits technology with insufficient funding.
Underfunding of basic administrative functions means that
even if there is an influx of funds for improving technology,
overworked agency staff may not have the capacity to
manage complex improvement projects. Achieving progress
has proven to be challenging in nearly every state. Across
government, only 13% of major government information
technology (IT) overhauls succeed, according to U.S.
government technology and design consultancy 18F, part
of the U.S. General Services Administration. Particularly
in the wake of the pandemic, states sought to learn from
each other’s experiences as they struggled with similar
challenges. As there is always a potential recession looming,
as the Federal Open Market Committee warned earlier
this year, it is especially important to implement strategies
to improve services that are less than an entire overhaul
of state UI systems. Taking an incremental approach that
emphasizes ongoing changes over time will help states
improve performance whenever the next surge of UI
applicants occurs.
New Jersey’s approach to incremental improvements has
succeeded in improving access and efficiency and may
be helpful to other states that are considering the options
available to improve their systems. When New Jersey
initiated the first projects that led to a broader modernization
plan, the state had not intended for immediate improvements
to be the basis of a large modernization project. However,
the process was so successful that the state changed its
strategy about how to approach a long-term plan. New
Jersey’s decision to apply this approach to full technology
modernization is visionary in the context of UI, though not out
of the ordinary in the private sector. Given the fact that the
initial projects the state has undertaken have been deployed
and improved claimant experience, these early successes
demonstrate that the state’s strategy is likely to dramatically
improve overall benefits delivery and better access to UI
benefits in the future.
The New Jersey Approach: Small Fixes for Big Gains
States should consider many aspects of the way New Jersey
has been making improvements no matter how they are
approaching modernizing technology. For states that have
already modernized or are in the process of modernization,
there is still opportunity to improve the experience for
both users and the state agency that works on the system
in discrete ways and make back-end fixes that may not be
readily apparent to users or state staff, but that can improve
processes. States can look at their processes, forms, and
technology, and prioritize small manageable improvements
that will dramatically enhance the applicants’ experience
as well as the morale of agency staff. This kind of process
may seem risky at first, but working through a few discrete
issues could help demonstrate, as New Jersey discovered,
that states will see a clear benefit to being able to identify and
address challenges as they arise.
New Jersey’s strategy was to avoid developing system
requirements and paying for technology before seeing the
results. Instead, the state sought to see the improvements
delivered to residents and make changes as it learned
from claimants. New Jersey’s goal was to ensure that
the technology was not a limit to policy options, but that
technology and policy can improve together. As described
below, there are five key tenets to New Jersey’s technology
philosophy that distinguish its approach to UI modernization.
The most important observation about UI technology
innovation is that true modernization is based on a solid policy
and process that can adapt as a state learns more about
challenges faced by claimants to ensure that technology
helps users obtain the benefits they are entitled to on a
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
4
timely basis. Although this section of the paper precedes a
discussion of policy levers that make benefits accessible to
claimants, policy is driving technology modernization.
Feedback Opportunities with Real Users
Connecting to users was key. Legal Aid or Legal Services
partners are often a great source of information for state
agencies. Legal Services of New Jersey began maintaining
a spreadsheet of claimant challenges early in the pandemic
that it shared with NJDOL on a weekly basis. NJDOL and
Legal Services of New Jersey held weekly calls where often
as many as 60 issues were resolved in two hours. This was
a great way to discover common issues that could be fixed
through process improvements. For example, claimants
received their eligibility determination in the mail, which was
the only copy of that document that would ever be available.
This created headaches for claimants who lost this document
but wanted to challenge the determination. One priority of
the technology team was to determine how claimants could
access documents whenever they wanted. This problem
was not unique to New Jersey. Other states have grappled
with the same issue and found solutions to it. This suggests
an opening for an important role for the U.S. Department
of Labor (DOL) and the National Association of State
Workforce Agencies to play in sharing innovations to common
challenges across states.
Gathering feedback from users was also key. New Jersey
added a feedback form that enabled NJDOL to address
pressing issues for claimants. For example, when users
were asking about how to find 1099s, the state made that
information easier and accessible to find on the Internet and
added a note to the Interactive Voice Response system to
create a pathway for claimants to navigate to it.
The team also considered claimants who might not
understand their formal options to communicate with NJDOL.
Team members routinely monitored social media groups to
find common concerns. They checked Reddit’s r/unemployed
forum for posts from New Jersey residents. Occasionally,
they reached out to posters to clarify information. Of course,
this must be done carefully to avoid the appearance that plain
language researchers with vendors or NJDOL are speaking
for the department or give the impression that they can make
an eligibility determination. One successful example is a part-
time assistant to a special needs student who experienced a
reduction in their work hours, attempted to apply for partial
UI, and posted to Reddit about their experience. The initial
communications the assistant had received requesting
additional separation information were confusing and did not
seem relevant for partial UI. Thereafter, NJDOL developed
clearer communications about how partial UI works.
Connection with Frontline Staff
The most important stakeholders to engage are frontline
workers serving claimants and making decisions about
eligibility on a daily basis. Senior NJDOL staff report that
engaging with frontline staff has given staff a level of
participation and excitement that makes the process easier
for both claimants and staff. Frontline staff are also key to
discovering what is confusing to claimants or how process
or language changes could cause further confusion. The
Communication Workers of America, which represents
NJDOL frontline staff, confirmed this. One union shop
steward said, “When the new administration came in,
they listened. That is huge. They have a relationship and
partnership with the unions and other agencies and people
on the front lines.”
Start with a Comprehensive Understanding
In hindsight, New Jersey leaders determined that starting
with a comprehensive process and service-mapping exercise
is critical to an effective modernization undertaking. This
process helps identify current workflows and roadblocks
in the system that can be addressed without inadvertently
doubling down on old and inefficient policies and practices.
From these reflections and learnings, New Jersey is now
engaging in creating measurement instruments throughout
all processes. New Jersey is also now analyzing more data
from the UI call centers to find out why claimants are calling,
where calls are dropping, and examining phone numbers to
see how much volume is coming from repeat callers. These
measurements also apply to online interactions to find where
claimants are dropping claims, or which web pages and
questions are taking the most time. As the state measures
these problems, it can make more informed decisions —
whether to prioritize changes that can be accomplished
quickly, or issues affecting the greatest number of claimants.
Using these metrics, New Jersey has been able to prioritize
interventions, such as adding helper text to some questions,
explaining what a “dependency benefit” is, and clarifying
that only one claimant per household can claim a dependent.
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
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These metrics have also been used to totally rework
questions. One notoriously confusing question for all states
is determining when a claimant is “able and available” for
work. New Jersey revised that question to make it more
understandable: “Can you start full-time work immediately?”
The advantage of intentionally prioritizing parts of the
system for improvement means that goals can be set for
each process and incremental improvements made rather
than waiting for the entire program to be reformed. Noted
innovation expert Jennifer Pahlka observed that “The big
bang modernizations seem to mostly modernize for the sake
of modernization. The iterative approach has distinct goals
for each smaller project and can measure whether it succeeds
in those goals.” These metrics are actually key to goal setting
and progress measurement.
Lessons Learned from the Intake Process
The initial pilot that DOL identified for states to engage
with was claimant experience at login, so that became an
early priority for NJDOL. The intake application process
improvement project was immensely complex — lining up
policies, procedures, and databases. In order to make the
front end work, a great deal of back-end work had to be done.
Currently, there are 20 distinct types of claims. The dated
Reemployment Call Center application was also a major
challenge as it is rigid and integrating with it was the most
bespoke intervention.
The intake process involved several steps. Claimants must
first create a single sign-on account, then can begin to file a
claim, answer application questions, and submit the claim.
After they receive a confirmation, claimants are routed to
ID.me, a third-party identity proofing service. If they are
unable to pass the verification online, they have to call in
or engage in the in-person option to verify their identity.
Claimants may then expect more clarifying questions, after
which they will get a determination as to their monetary and
non-monetary eligibility. (Essentially, determinations as to
whether they earned enough qualifying income, lost their
job through no fault of their own, and are otherwise able and
available to accept suitable work.) The application process
also should trigger a notification to claimants that they should
begin weekly certifications. There are other checks in this
process, such as ensuring that the routing number supplied
for direct deposit matches to the correct bank.
The new intake process enabled claimants to more easily
reopen current benefit year claims — once a claimant
establishes a weekly benefit amount, that amount should be
available to them if they do not use their 26 weeks of eligibility
before returning to work and then subsequently lose that
work. NJDOL staff are enthusiastic about the user-centered,
inclusive approach they managed in collaboration with
Truss, a software development company. They use a tool,
Figma, to collaborate on visual designs. NJDOL also utilizes
GitHub Projects to see tasks, find out who has done work on
them, who is reviewing them, organize sprints and manage
feasibility, and focus on tasks. By using Figma in prototyping,
not all collaborators need to know the programming
language to have meaningful involvement. This new
environment has also made testing much easier. State staff
were particularly enthusiastic about these tools’ usefulness in
actively managing processes and projects. NJDOL staff also
emphasized that Truss’ timely and regular feedback when
they encountered challenges made it easier to make course
corrections. While this process involves significant NJDOL
staff time, staff are better able to manage the process and
solve problems in real time.
Team Communication
High-level personal involvement from leadership is a
necessary prerequisite for ambitious digital modernization
projects to succeed. Another key element is regular check-
in meetings with technologists, UI subject-matter experts,
legal experts, and other key decision-makers as well as staff
from finance and accounting, procurement, and research
information to clear roadblocks as they arise. While New
Jersey, or any other state, cannot simplify language, forms, or
processes to the point that they miss key legal requirements,
it is also easy to protect inefficient processes or convoluted
legal language out of a belief that they must be required
by law. A cross-department dialogue needs to take place
between innovators and staff to ensure that the state is on
firm legal ground while also making major changes.
New Jersey’s communications redesign process relied
heavily on close collaboration. New Jersey brought on
seasoned communications expert Janice Cho to lead its
efforts. Janice and her team implemented the use of Figma
to seamlessly facilitate collaboration across innovation,
UI experts, and legal reviewers. The state identified a lack
of response to Appeal Tribunal, which handles UI benefit
disputes, as a challenge. After a major redesign of the
claimant communication process, streamlining information
provided to claimants, and nudges, the response rate
increased from 60% to 80%. Individuals working in hearings
and appeals also report that claimants were making fewer
mistakes on forms, leading to a smoother process for NJDOL
staff.
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
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New Jersey’s UI Modernization History
As is true for many states, New Jersey entered the COVID-19
pandemic with a fragile, poorly documented mainframe
system operating on Common Business Oriented Language
(COBOL), which is a programming language developed in
1959.
2
While neither COBOL nor mainframes are inherently
unworkable, they are not ideal for operating state UI systems
for a multitude of reasons. For example, the lack of availability
of COBOL programmers when multiple states were having
technical challenges during the pandemic was challenging.
As with other legacy mainframe COBOL systems, it is a
“black box” with code dating back to before many agency
staff were born. Moreover, multiple developers changing
complex processes over time means that modifications could
have unintended consequences. As such, it is difficult to
improve the system without creating additional, unintended
problems. In general, while banks and other institutions rely
on COBOL and mainframes for some functions, they have
far more money and flexibility to hire highly compensated
technologists and contract freely than state UI systems. It
can get complicated — when attempting to make forms more
claimant friendly — when the website that users see has
to interface with antiquated behind-the-scenes systems.
Although there is some controversy, it is generally accepted
that it is much more advantageous for states to have a plan
to transition away from these systems than to attempt to
maintain them indefinitely.
Along with most states, New Jersey made several attempts
to upgrade its technology systems over the years. The
Request for Proposals (RFP) for modernization from 2005
identified the Local Office Online Payment System, an
outdated 30-year-old mainframe. The other main system
still in operation is the Reemployment Call Center system,
which is the database that agents use to review incoming
claims. Claimants can either file a claim online or call
in. The Interactive Voice Response system accepts and
routes incoming phone traffic, as well as accepts weekly
certifications and new initial claims. These systems are
still in place.
In 2008, New Jersey partnered with a major technology firm
to implement an end-to-end technology modernization
process. While modernization has a wide range of meanings,
in the context of UI technology, it means moving from a
monolithic antiquated codebase into more modern language
and tools, and usually moving off a mainframe and into
the “cloud.” This is usually done to make the system less
brittle and easier for the state to modify and manage,
although states are increasingly looking to improve claimant
experience as they improve technology. By 2015, New Jersey
had developed a new intake website, but the questions
claimants answered up front did not always correspond
directly to how they were expressed in the underlying system.
Claims requiring agent intervention were often complicated,
requiring translation to back-end systems that could
necessitate having up to five computer screens to cross-
check data with different systems and enter the information.
New Jersey also attempted to partner with the State of New
York when Unemployment Insurance Modernization Act
(UIMA) funding was available to states following the Great
Recession. One of the requirements for using UIMA funds was
that states modernize in a consortium. However, many such
consortia broke apart, some reconfigured, while others did
not succeed. The reason for these dissolutions varied across
consortia, much of it having to do with how long and involved
these processes are, the incredible degree of variance
between state systems, and occasionally changes in political
leadership calling for a change in direction. Since 2015, New
Jersey attempted to rewrite the Reemployment Call Center
system and move it to a web-based JAVA back-end system.
This rewrite has been nearing launch for years now and is
likely to launch around the time this paper is published.
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
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The Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in New Jersey
As with all states and territories, New Jersey was unprepared
for the surge in new claims during the pandemic. During
the week ending March 6, 2020, New Jersey had among
the highest insured-unemployed rate (due to favorable
access policies for claimants) at 2.8% and had 7,910 initial
claims.
3
Two weeks later, during the week ending March 21,
155,454 applied for UI benefits. New claims increased to
205,515 the following week, and by the end of the month,
they had reached 213,897.
4
These levels remained elevated
throughout 2020 (see Figure 3). In addition, New Jersey had
to set up three entirely new programs per federal legislation:
Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC)
added $600 to any unemployment benefit, Pandemic
Emergency Unemployment Compensation added additional
weeks of benefits above the 26 weeks already available
in New Jersey, and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
(PUA) created several new eligibility criteria for people who
otherwise would not have qualified for regular UI.
Figure 3: Initial UI Claims by Month, New Jersey, 2020
Despite these enormous challenges, New Jersey was able
to get PUA operational in a little over a month, which is about
average timing for states. It is important to note that the PUA
platform was set up by UI staff rather than IT staff.
Developing the NJDOL website internally demonstrated
improvements can be made without requiring time-
consuming change orders to a procurement contract, paving
the way for an approach that blends the use of in-house and
vendor talent to make rapid improvements.
Pandemic-driven job losses surged in the northeastern
United States because the COVID-19 pandemic hit
metropolitan areas in those states particularly hard. New
Jersey benefited from having strong leadership and support
from Governor Philip Murphy and NJDOL Commissioner
Robert Asaro-Angelo. One interviewee said, “It comes
down to the Commissioner. He is in demo meetings and
requirement meetings, so when someone says they do not
have the resources to do something, he will ask for a proposal
for the staff needed to do it.” It is easy for technology projects
to encounter roadblocks that take time to resolve through
normal bureaucracy. Therefore, it requires leadership to
commit a great deal of time and effort to ensure that issues
can be resolved as soon as they arise in order to move at the
speed necessary to make measurable progress in a timely
manner. This approach calls for a level of fearless willingness
to be steeped in technology, as leadership requires the
knowledge and confidence to make big decisions and pivot
quickly as teams encounter challenges.
In relation to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and
its impacts on the UI system, New Jersey was also in the
fortunate position of having established a state Office of
Innovation (OOI) in the summer of 2018. Dr. Beth Noveck was
appointed by Governor Murphy as the state’s Chief Innovation
Officer and included as a member of the Governor’s cabinet.
Dr. Noveck previously served in the Obama White House as
Director of the White House Open Government Initiative and
Deputy Chief Technology Officer. OOI employs technologists,
designers, and policy professionals skilled in the rapid
development of citizen-facing government services. Since
OOI had been working with NJDOL prior to the pandemic on
other technology projects, including the development of a
platform to help job seekers identify training opportunities
and another tool to help the employed conduct a job search,
it was well positioned to collaborate with NJDOL during the
crisis. OOI recruited highly regarded technologists, including
Giuseppe Morgana, who had served on the U.S. Digital
Service (USDS), and Dave Cole, who was a senior White
House advisor on technology innovation. As Dr. Noveck,
Morgana, Cole, and Commissioner Asaro-Angelo had all
previously worked for the federal government, they were in
a good position to form a rapid partnership with USDS, DOL,
and the White House during the pandemic.
0
100,000
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January
February
March
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November
December
Number of Initial Claims
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
8
New Jersey’s UI Modernization Landscape and
Important Players During COVID-19
In addition to the presence of OOI, another of the most
important key staff leaders in the New Jersey reforms has
been the Director of New Jersey’s Office of Unemployment
Insurance Modernization (OUIM), Gillian Gutierrez. At the
beginning of the pandemic, she was Director of Strategic
Planning and Outreach for NJDOL and was the primary point
of contact at the agency for innovation efforts. As such,
she laid the groundwork for the human-centered design
approach described in the next section of this paper. For
example, she made sure that the digital innovation team could
connect to a diverse set of claimants to conduct extensive
user testing and research. Her new role and office were
created in January 2022. In addition to years of experience
and expertise in worker benefits and protections, which make
her an excellent technical leader, she worked for nearly a
dozen years in DOL’s Women’s Bureau, so she brought an
exceptional level of awareness and expertise around equity
issues. OUIM also hired a lawyer who had previously worked
at Legal Services of New Jersey, Kristin Matteo, as the policy
lead on this team to ensure that claimants’ needs would be
at the forefront throughout the process. A major component
of ensuring modernization works correctly is having a policy
expert at the table who can provide insight around the
purpose of current policy and what can be changed and what
should be retained.
Modernization efforts got under way during the height
of an unprecedented crisis, and long-time UI leadership
competently managed all of this integration work while
managing the most chaotic moment in the history of
Unemployment Insurance. The Assistant Commissioner of
the Division of Information Technology Sharon Pagano and
the UI Director Greg Castellani continued to implement all the
changes in law and modifications to guidance that came out
while still paying claims. This was no small feat, considering
they had to implement dozens of updates to guidance
following two legislative changes to pandemic-era programs
while getting $40 billion to workers.
The first step in this collaboration was to look for areas
where OOI could be additive to solving problems that NJDOL
identified. The first stress point NJDOL identified was the UI
weekly certification process. To be eligible for unemployment
compensation, claimants must not only complete an initial
application and be determined eligible, but also certify their
eligibility weekly.
In order not to overburden the beleaguered system,
claimants were required to complete this weekly certification
of ongoing eligibility during an assigned 30-minute window.
The website NJDOL was using at the time was not designed
to work on mobile devices despite the fact that 52% of
users were accessing the site via a mobile device. For this
reason, claimants had to ensure they had access to a desktop
computer during the time-limited certification window.
When it was determined that the legacy technology would
not permit expanding the window, NJDOL and OOI worked
together to: make the website more usable via mobile
device and simplify the language and process (see Figure
4 on page 9). These improvements, done over a matter of
weeks, rather than months or years, also included more
plain language directions and a third gender option. (See
the appendix for additional examples of before and after
screenshots of improvements made to New Jersey’s UI forms
and materials.)
After NJDOL identified improving weekly certification as a
priority, the state began a formal engagement with USDS,
a technology service housed in the Executive Office of the
President of the United States. By all accounts from NJDOL
staff, this was a mutually beneficial collaboration. Another
key element of this success was the high-level commitment
from DOL beginning in 2020. Senior political leadership at
DOL’s Employment and Training Administration were also
committed to identifying promising practices and deploying
modern technology improvements, including Assistant
Secretary John Pallasch and Deputy Assistant Secretary
Amy Simon. One interviewee commented that it was a
“more holistic approach working together across federal
and state government using modern processes.” Prior to
this partnership, the federal government had never played
a direct hands-on role in building UI technology at the state
level. In interviews, OOI staff identified several reasons this
worked well. First, the crisis helped to make the state more
receptive to outside assistance. Second, USDS was well-
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
9
poised to help with this kind of project. Third, staff at both
USDS and NJDOL were able to quickly build rapport. Finally,
the scope of the project was deliberately narrow, which
helped to ensure an initial success.
The partnership with DOL and USDS carried over into the
Biden Administration when it assumed leadership in January
2021. The American Rescue Plan Act allocated $2 billion to
DOL “to detect and prevent fraud, ensure timely payment of
benefits, and promote equitable access.” One area of focus
in that effort was to develop central tools and resources
for states working to modernize their UI technology. In
December 2021, New Jersey became one of two states,
along with Arkansas, to be selected to participate with DOL
and USDS in a “claimant experience pilot.” The idea was that
these two states would pioneer and test improvements that
the federal government could then help to replicate across
states. The pilots in each state ultimately deployed quite
different solutions to improve user experience. Arkansas
worked with DOL on improving the online registration
process by connecting the state’s UI system to Login.gov, the
federal government’s tool for single sign-on access, while
New Jersey focused on changes to its intake and certification
processes. The work continued with DOL’s OUIM after USDS’
involvement ended.
When the improved form design and questions were
deployed, the average applicant in New Jersey completed the
intake form 48 minutes faster than the previous version of the
form. The revised intake application also prioritized equity.
Extensive user testing has been a core component of all
projects that NJDOL has launched through the federal OUIM
since 2020. DOL continued to work with New Jersey through
April 2023 to continue integration work with the current
system. The public version of this project will launch by the
fall of 2023. The state is currently working with U.S. Digital
Response to add a mechanism that will enable claimants to
apply in Spanish, an effort that is described later in this paper.
Figure 4: Implementing User-centered Weekly Unemployment Certification - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE AFTER
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
10
New Jersey issued its first agile development request for
quotes on March 7, 2022. To accomplish this, the state used
a publicly available procurement vehicle available through
the U.S. General Services Administration for state and local
governments.
5
Recognizing this functionality and taking
advantage of it, by itself, is innovative. While it is not strictly
necessary for states to contract with vendors for this kind of
modernization project, and the process was led and driven
by the state, it is worth discussing vendor selection and
collaboration, as the state deliberately selected vendors
with a vision and approach that matched its claimant-first
vision. New Jersey also managed the collaboration in a way
that ensured that public servants were at the center of all
decision-making and problem solving as issues arose.
To accelerate the improvement process, the state agencies
rapidly brought in outside vendors that worked closely with
the agencies under their direction. Work was not simply
outsourced. Rather, new talent was integrated into the
in-house teams, following the state’s lead in terms of the
choice of project and the approach (agile, iterative, and
human-centered). New Jersey worked with vendors that
represented a new approach to public-sector technology:
Nava and Truss were founded by members of the team that
the White House assigned to rescue HealthCare.gov after its
rocky start in 2010. Nava works with states to incrementally
rework components of their systems using human-centered
design principles. Likewise, Truss identifies processes that
can be improved in an iterative fashion, meaning creating
technology solutions that are not “one and done,” but built
using continuous improvement processes based on user
experiences.
Traditional Approaches to UI Modernization
Generally, when states consider modernizing their entire
system, they follow a standard approach. First, the state
usually issues an RFP with a comprehensive list of system
requirements and then hires a vendor to manage the
entire process. The vendor then responds to the state’s
requirements with some version of a customizable
commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) product. Implementing
these COTS products is often difficult because states operate
their UI system in wildly varying ways. Not only do all of the
qualifications differ between states, benefit calculations
and business practices also vary. Even some things that may
seem similar from one state to another are vastly different
upon closer inspection. For example, two states may offer
26 weeks of benefits, but one state may pay a benefit in 26
weeks, and another state offers a monetary eligibility for 26
times the claimant’s weekly benefit amount. This means that
a claimant picking up some part-time work applies differently
for workers in different states. In one state, a week counts as
one of the 26 weeks, but another state subtracts whatever the
claimant was paid in UI from their total eligibility. When one
multiplies that level of variation across all of the ways that
state laws can vary, it is easy to see how difficult and complex
it is to transfer solutions across states.
This COTS-driven process can be attractive for states
because there are vendors with experience in this work, albeit
a small handful that may experience some challenges scaling
to meet the needs of all 53 states and territories that operate
a UI system. Since funding for these projects often comes
as a single allocation, issuing a contract for the amount that
a legislature appropriates creates a level of certainty about
the cost of the overall effort. The risks of things not working
is also centralized, or in procurement parlance, there is one
organization or person to blame when things do not work as
intended. This is also a familiar model to NJDOL staff and may
be the only kind of procurement that will gain support from
state procurement, IT, and finance departments.
Before making a decision about what to build, states must
define their goals. If the goal is to purchase a steady state
system that is fixed and meets upfront requirements, these
COTS processes can meet that goal. However, if the goals
are more about reducing claimant burden or being able to
evolve as quickly as shifting fraud tactics shift, it is better to
understand that the system needs to be more adaptable.
The biggest challenge the traditional procurement process
presents is that the state has to anticipate all of the problems
that may be encountered. However, unexpected issues arise
along the way despite the hundreds of pages of requirements
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
11
often included in RFPs. Another challenge is that sometimes
in copying solutions from one state to another, a product
may inadvertently change the way a state asks questions or
operates in a way that may not be an improvement for that
state. Also, there is a downside to some (but not all) of these
arrangements when states do not own their code or have
easy access to their data through their vendor arrangements.
Often it is considered a best practice in government
contracting to require that vendors have completed a similar
project and met all RFP criterion, but that may unnecessarily
limit a state’s vendor options and prevent them from taking
advantage of new and promising practices. Furthermore, a
state can never truly outsource risk. Even if the contractor
is responsible for fixing problems, stakeholders such as
claimants, policymakers, and the media are going to hold
the state agency and elected officials responsible for any
deficiencies. Even if costs are fixed up front, change orders
may be unpredictable after system deployment.
New Jersey’s Agile and Human-centered
Design Approach
A key principle of human-centered design is to build with the
claimant and agency worker experience at the front of the
process, and not at the end, with additional testing built into
the process wherever possible. This testing should involve
discovering not just that something is understandable, but
understandable at a high-confidence level. While asking
claimants whether a form makes sense is one approach, it
can also be extremely helpful to actually watch claimants
and/or agency staff make their way through a process to
see where they are having issues. The Figma documents
referenced earlier in this paper demonstrate the questions
the team asked claimants to assess for both understanding
and confidence. Instead of asking, “Do you understand this
notice?” researchers asked, “What is this notice telling you?”
and “What does this notice want you to do?” and “By when
does it want you to do that?” and “How will you accomplish
this?”
NJDOL’s communications redesign team sometimes took an
unconventional approach to doing its work. For example, at
the start of a form redesign or when thinking about rewording
questions or adding helper text, Janice Cho would develop an
initial draft by asking ChatGPT to explain the topic or concept
in a way that was easy to understand. Most of the time, the
artificial intelligence-generated text was a good starting
point to begin the process of rewriting forms. This process
also added plain language nudges to remind claimants
that they may be eligible for Mixed Earner Unemployment
Compensation, which was an additional benefit established
by Congress in December 2020 for claimants who earned
income that may have qualified them for a larger PUA
benefit than the UI benefit for which they were eligible. The
communications team also sent nudges to people who may
have been eligible for overpayment waivers. Team members
tracked responses to reminder emails in five-minute intervals
when the reminder first launched, which netted thousands of
responses on the first day.
Another promising feature that New Jersey has launched
and is working to improve is claim status tracking. One major
takeaway from the pandemic was that giving claimants a way
to find out that their claim had been received and be able to
see roughly where it is in the process gives them peace of
mind and reduces call volume so the state can focus on other
issues. A simple version of this form has recently launched,
but NJDOL staff noted they will conduct additional user
testing and make improvements to the current form. NJDOL
staff are also working to ensure that process inquiries in
other parts of the UI system redirect to this page. A previous,
more detailed claims tracker was not engineered to handle
high volume of claims, which caused it to crash. This is an
excellent example of the need for an iterative process that
can pivot when one approach does not work. This form
batches process requests from many systems, stores that
information to a highly scalable cloud-based database, and
then serves it through an Application Programming Interface
that is integrated with both the online claims system and the
Interactive Voice Response system for phone users. A NJDOL
customer experience survey revealed that 75% of claimants
find it helpful.
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
12
New Jersey’s Prioritization of Translation
Generally, it is considered prudent to have translation work
follow full plain language updates. However, in New Jersey’s
case, having some overlap in the handoff has proven useful.
In late 2022, public interest technology firm U.S. Digital
Response (USDR) — a pro-bono nonprofit group founded
during the pandemic to help state and local governments
with a variety of process and technology challenges —
volunteered to work on the Spanish translation process. One
of the greatest public-sector technology challenges in 2020
was in UI and it became one of USDR’s main focus areas.
NJDOL gave USDR access to its GitHub repository and set
up a process whereby USDR could propose translated text.
USDR would then copy over forms that had been through
plain language development for translation. USDR used a
service called Netlify to create a prototype to begin user
testing. USDR also created a PDF of that form for users
without Internet access to test.
Much thoughtful user testing work went into this UI
modernization effort in New Jersey. User experience
testing is generally one of the most time-intensive parts of
development, but when it comes to translation, it becomes
even more challenging. The users are extremely diverse,
often from multiple nations of origin, and may distrust
government for various reasons. USDR worked with Legal
Services of New Jersey, which already had established
relationships in various communities. USDR also reached
out to unions and nonprofits with close ties to immigrant
communities, as well as trade groups. USDR was able
to leverage these relationships to recruit volunteers.
Additionally, USDR made sure to include claimants from a
wide range of Spanish-speaking countries. Similarly, USDR
worked to ensure that translators on its team came from a
variety of countries. While USDR had team members who
were fluent in Spanish to help translate, it also found it critical
to have native Spanish speakers on the team not just to
improve the quality of translation, but for outreach purposes
to build trust for user recruitment.
Once users were recruited, USDR would test each iteration
with two to three users, make improvements, and then re-
test until it was confident of the language. Even then, a single
translation that works for all Spanish speakers is impossible.
For example, the word “paycheck” does not have a single
translation across the entire Spanish-speaking world.
USDR has developed an extensive glossary with alternate
translations as well as the English term for a variety of
relevant terms. While there is a commonly held belief that all
plain language work should be completed before undertaking
translation work, there is value in some overlap in these two
processes. For example, the translation team found that
visual representations made forms more understandable,
such as what qualifying documentation looks like. This could
also be useful for English-proficient claimants who might
have limited literacy, as well.
As previously mentioned, and observed in other projects,
learning from state agency staff was invaluable. The USDR
team met with bilingual NJDOL call center agents who were
able to identify challenges that Spanish-speaking claimants
encounter. According to USDR’s lead on this translation work,
Marcie Chin, “If you engage with frontline workers, which
is the cheat code to finding issues that Spanish speakers
encounter.” Another best practice around equity is that New
Jersey has a compensation process for individuals who
helped with user input. This is not only fair for people giving
up their time, but it also helps to ensure that claimants of
limited means with limited time can participate.
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
13
The New Jersey UI Modernization Approach
In their initial conversations about this project, senior NJDOL
leadership emphasized that the state is responsible to assist
the public in a way that truly serves their needs and that
everything else should follow. Consistent with New Jersey’s
longstanding tendency toward ensuring access to benefits
for all workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their
own, the state has taken on a comprehensive approach to
improving its technology. Key to this approach are data-
informed intentional processes of prioritizing issues and
communication between teams and with frontline staff and
users. However, throughout the process, one of the main
messages that came across from the New Jersey experience
was the inherent connection between policy, business
practice, and technology. No improvement or decision can
take place in a vacuum in one of those silos. Technology
systems in some states are a bottleneck to making
democratic decisions about how to provide benefits. In other
states, visionary technological innovation can only achieve so
much when the underlying law is exclusionary. In any case,
no innovation can be fully realized unless policy subject-
matter experts, business practice leaders, and technology
innovators can closely collaborate to ensure innovation
processes are truly additive.
Underlying UI Policy and Access Issues
Regardless of technology challenges, New Jersey is
consistently one of the best states for both access to UI and
replacement of prior income. While there are areas of access
policy that can and should be improved, such as the federal
flexibilities that Commissioner Asaro-Angelo has called
for in weekly certification, there are a variety of factors at
play that set the stage for policy levers to favor equitable
distribution of benefits in the state, beginning with political
factors that have set good policy.
New Jersey’s replacement of prior income hovers around
50%, which is about the level that has historically been
considered sufficient, but given the experience of far
higher wage replacement in the pandemic and wages
in general being less sufficient, credible entities have
recommended far higher replacement rates. University of
Massachusetts economist Dr. Arindrajit Dube recommends
80% replacement for the lowest income claimants, tapering
down to 50% for claimants with higher incomes at the time of
job loss. U.S. Senator and Senate Finance Committee Chair
Ron Wyden and U.S. Senator Michael Bennet have proposed
a 75% replacement rate up to the state’s maximum weekly
benefit.
While recipiency in 2022 was 53%, it should be noted that in
the 1970s, it was 83% in 1971 and reached a high of 97% in
1975. Access declined in the 1980s due to a law passed in
1981 that increased benefit eligibility standards and reduced
wage replacement, which declined to just 15% in 1994.
Changes in the law in 1992, 1995, 2002, and 2003 made it
easier for workers to earn enough to qualify for benefits in a
few key ways, and increased standard weeks of benefits as
well as benefits available for workers enrolled in qualified
training programs.
One of the key drivers of high recipiency in New Jersey is
likely union density. On average from 2019 to 2021, 16.09%
of workers in the state were union members, and the state
has historically had higher-than-average union density.
This factor plays a role in both how claimant friendly the
underlying laws are, and the actual ability of workers to
access benefits. Union members are more than twice as
likely to apply for and receive unemployment benefits.
The fact that New Jersey’s labor movement is savvy around
UI issues means that while some states infrequently open
UI statutes, improvements pass with greater regularity
in the Garden State. In the fall of 2022, legislation was
signed into law that would require employers to provide
workers notification of their rights to access UI at the time
of separation from employment. While New Jersey is one
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
14
of only two states to provide benefits for striking workers,
this past spring, the legislature improved that law to provide
coverage after 14 days rather than 30 days, and improve
lockout provisions.
To look at some of the applied policies that lead to benefit
access, one of the most significant factors in ensuring
workers are covered under UI is defining employees
correctly. The gold standard for determining who is truly an
independent contractor rather than an employee is the “ABC
standard” where per NJDOL: “A) the individual has been
and will continue to be free from control or direction over
the performance of work performed, both under contract
of service and in fact; and B) the work is either outside
the usual course of the business for which such service
is performed, or the work is performed outside of all the
places of business of the enterprise for which such service is
performed; and C) the individual is customarily engaged in an
independently established trade, occupation, profession or
business.“
6
Twenty-three states have an ABC standard on the
books, but New Jersey is particularly serious about ensuring
that it works. NJDOL has been serious about going after
employers that misclassify workers both administratively and
by championing passage of legislation.
Benefit levels replace a significant percentage of income
because the formula is set to simply replace 60% of a
claimant’s average weekly wage up to 57% of the average
weekly wage in the state, currently $830. New Jersey is one of
only 13 states to provide dependent benefits. This maximum
weekly benefit in New Jersey is indexed annually and is one
of the highest in the United States. By way of comparison,
claimants in Arizona can expect a maximum payment of $240
per week.
7
New Jersey also has a generous provision for
partial UI for claimants working part time while collecting
UI. While most states only allow a claimant to earn up to their
weekly benefit amount, New Jersey allows workers to earn
40% more than that amount and still be eligible for partial
benefits. New Jersey is also one of only seven states to not
require a waiting period to be eligible for benefits. Moreover,
the state has two additional triggers to allow for extended
benefits: when total unemployment (as opposed to insured
unemployment) is over 6.5% and greater than the previous
year and allows for 7 additional weeks over the usual 13
weeks when unemployment reaches 8%. Fewer than half of
states have these additional triggers. New Jersey operates
Short-time Compensation — also known as a work-sharing
program — that allows employers the option to reduce hours
across the workforce rather than lay off workers.
All of these policy levers present in New Jersey provide a
favorable landscape for UI claimants.
Conclusion
There are many factors critical to ensuring an unemployment
system pays the right benefits to claimants on time that
are sufficient to provide claimants with the necessary time
and resources to find a good replacement for the job they
lost. Before any technological intervention can get a state
to a good UI system, the state must have claimant-oriented
rules set by the legislature and the agency responsible for
guaranteeing all people who lose work through no fault of
their own have fair access to and knowledge of their rights to
benefits. The agency responsible for paying benefits must
have the power, leadership, time, skills, and resources to
manage an ambitious process improvement.
No innovation project is purely technological. Clear
collaboration across technology, policy, legal, and logistical
experts is critical to success. Leadership needs to be able to
devote extensive time to this process as well as to develop
their own agency-wide expertise at assessing technologies
and focusing on user experience and design. All staff involved
need to be willing to overcome inertia and ask if there is
a better, different way to approach examining problems
and finding solutions. The state needs to reexamine how it
thinks about risk and be willing to take on more potential
responsibility risk while shedding some other kinds of
uncertainty risk. Knowing that multiple pivots in every
process will be necessary is important to acknowledge and
socialize up front so that changes to the game plan are not
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
15
just tolerated but expected. Testing and being willing to check
assumptions throughout the process should be routinized
and normalized.
Engagement is necessary in many ways and is needed
constantly. Every respondent interviewed for this paper was
effusive about the talent and knowledge of frontline agency
staff. Reaching out to legal services and community groups
was likewise a necessary step if the goal is centering claimant
experience. Finding creative ways to engage the public
outside of formal channels also led to better understanding of
and approach to solutions.
Mapping processes and the claimant experience up front is
critical to making good prioritization decisions. This is also
true for ensuring that the state is measuring core metrics
about where claimants are having difficulty, and which kinds
of claimants are experiencing challenges in which parts of
the process. This mapping process and focus on the claimant
experience is also important in knowing what effect various
interventions are actually having on access.
Another through line with this work is a willingness to
embrace new tools and new entities open to engage on
UI. Particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic,
new vendors and volunteers have developed an interest
and expertise in UI. New publicly available collaboration
technologies have made it easier to manage projects and
allowed for people with different kinds of expertise to be able
to participate fully in the UI space.
The public pays little attention to these efforts when the
economy is operating well, but then states face intense
scrutiny during economic downturns when these neglected
systems do not operate well. Examining one state — New
Jersey — that made significant improvements during an
unprecedented crisis and continuing into a period of less
chaos, will help other states find solutions to better serve
their residents who are entitled to unemployment benefits.
End Notes
1 Gutierrez, G. (n.d.) Current efforts towards UI
modernization [PowerPoint presentation].
2 COBOL is a programming language developed in 1959 for
the U.S. Department of Defense. It has fallen out of use over
the decades as more wieldy modern languages have been
developed.
3 This is the percent of workers unemployed and
eligible for UI. Retrieved from: https://oui.doleta.gov/
press/2020/031220.pdf
4 Retrieved from the U.S. Department of Labor Initial
Claims for Unemployment Archive: https://oui.doleta.gov/
unemploy/claims_arch.asp
5 If a state lacks a process to purchase something, the U.S.
General Services Administration has a mechanism for states
to purchase certain types of technology and vendor services.
6 Retrieved from https://www.nj.gov/labor/ea/audit/
independent-contractor-vs-employees/
7 Table 3-5 of DOL’s Comparison of State Unemployment
Insurance Laws, 2022: https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/pdf/
uilawcompar/2022/monetary.pdf
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
16
Appendix
Figure A-1: Hearing Notification - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE AFTER
Figure A-2: UI Claim Portal Log-in - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE AFTER
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
17
Figure A-3: Overpayment Waiver Application - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE
AFTER
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
18
Figure A-4: Status Updates - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE
AFTER
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
19
Figure A-5: Identification Verification Request - Before and After Screenshots
BEFORE
AFTER
New Jersey’s Worker-centered Approach to Improving the Administration of Unemployment Insurance
20
About the Author
Michele Evermore, a leading national expert on Unemployment Insurance, is Senior Fellow at the Century
Foundation and a Visiting, Non-resident Scholar at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development
at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Most recently, Michele served as the Deputy Director for
Policy in the Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization at the U.S. Department of Labor. While
there, she spearheaded several efforts to improve Unemployment Insurance benefit delivery in a timely
and accurate manner and to ensure equitable access for underserved communities. She also represented
the U.S. Department of Labor when describing those efforts to Congress and the media and through technical
assistance to states.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development for its assistance in developing this paper and the
New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, including Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo, and the New
Jersey Office of Innovation, for their cooperation in sharing their experiences. The author would also like to thank the Families and
Workers Fund for its generosity in supporting this research.
Finally, the author wishes to acknowledge and thank the following people for their help and cooperation: Marcie Chin, Rebecca
Dixon, Sarah Hymowitz, Waldo Jacquith, Giuseppe Morgana, Jennifer Pahlka, Ben Peirce, Amy Simon, Keith Talbot, Stephen
Wandner, and all their former colleagues who helped them to understand what “good” looks like in technology.
The opinions and views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions and views of the Heldrich
Center for Workforce Development or Rutgers University.
About the Heldrich Center
The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University is devoted to transforming the workforce
development system at the local, state, and federal levels. The center, located within the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning
and Public Policy, provides an independent source of analysis for reform and innovation in policymaking and employs cutting-
edge research and evaluation methods to identify best practices in workforce development, education, and employment policy. It
is also engaged in significant partnerships with the private sector, workforce organizations, and educational institutions to design
effective education and training programs. It is deeply committed to assisting job seekers and workers attain the information,
education, and skills training they need to move up the economic ladder.
As captured in its slogan, “Solutions at Work,” the Heldrich Center is guided by a commitment to translate the strongest research
and analysis into practices and programs that companies, community-based organizations, philanthropy, and government
officials can use to strengthen their workforce and workforce readiness programs, create jobs, and remain competitive. The
center’s work strives to build an efficient labor market that matches workers’ skills and knowledge with the evolving demands of
employers.
