skip to main content
research-article
Open access

Delivering Unemployment Assistance in Times of Crisis: Scalable Cloud Solutions Can Keep Essential Government Programs Running and Supporting Those in Need

Published: 09 November 2020 Publication History

Abstract

The COVID-19 public health emergency caused widespread economic shutdown and unemployment. The resulting surge in Unemployment Insurance claims threatened to overwhelm the legacy systems state workforce agencies rely on to collect, process, and pay claims. In Rhode Island, we developed a scalable cloud solution to collect Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims as part of a new program created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to extend unemployment benefits to independent contractors and gig-economy workers not covered by traditional Unemployment Insurance. Our new system was developed, tested, and deployed within 10 days following the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, making Rhode Island the first state in the nation to collect, validate, and pay Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims. A cloud-enhanced interactive voice response system was deployed a week later to handle the corresponding surge in weekly certifications for continuing unemployment benefits. Cloud solutions can augment legacy systems by offloading processes that are more efficiently handled in modern scalable systems, reserving the limited resources of legacy systems for what they were originally designed. This agile use of combined technologies allowed Rhode Island to deliver timely Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits with an estimated cost savings of $502,000 (representing a 411% return on investment).

References

[1]
Matthew Dey and Mark A. Loewenstein. 2020. How many workers are employed in sectors directly affected by COVID-19 shutdowns, where do they work, and how much do they earn? Monthly Labor Review. Retrieved October 22, 2020 from https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/covid-19-shutdowns.htm
[2]
Information Technology Support Center. 2019. Status of State UI IT Modernization Projects. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from http://itsc.org/Documents/Status%20of%20State%20UI%20IT%20Modernization%20Projects.pdf.
[3]
Information Technology Support Center. 2020. Learn About ITSC. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from http://itsc.org/Pages/learn.aspx.
[4]
National Association of State Workforce Agencies. 2010. A National View of UI IT Systems. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from http://itsc.org/itsc%20public%20library/NationalViewUI_IT%20Systems.pdf.
[5]
John Pallasch. 2020. Importance of including labor market information stakeholders in planning and implementation for unemployment insurance (UI) information technology modernization projects. U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, Training and Employment Notice No. 14-19. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from https://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/corr_doc.cfm?docn=3285.
[6]
John Pallasch. 2020. Coronavirus aid, relief, and economic security (CARES) Act of 2020—Pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) program operating, financial, and reporting instructions. U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, Unemployment Insurance Program Letter No. 16-20. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from https://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/corr_doc.cfm?DOCN=4628.
[7]
Phillip L. Swagel. 2020. CBO's current projections of output, employment, and interest rates and a preliminary look at federal deficits for 2020 and 2021. Congressional Budget Office. Retrieved on May 27, 2020 from https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56335.
[8]
Gina M. Raimondo. 2020. Sixteenth supplemental emergency declaration—Increasing access to unemployment insurance. State of Rhode Island, Executive Order 20-19. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from https://governor.ri.gov/documents/orders/Executive-Order-20-19.pdf.
[9]
Tripetto. 2020. Tripetto—Smart Conversational Forms and Surveys with Visual Form Builder. Retrieved on May 27, 2020 from https://tripetto.com.
[10]
U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2020. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Series LNS14000000. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000.
[11]
U. S. Congress. 2020. Coronavirus aid, relief, and economic security act. Public Law No. 116-136. Retrieved May 27, 2020 from https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/748.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Protecting Sensitive Data with Secure Data EnclavesDigital Government: Research and Practice10.1145/36436865:2(1-11)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2024
  • (2022)Predicting Divertible Medicaid Emergency Department CostsDigital Government: Research and Practice10.1145/35486923:3(1-19)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2022

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Digital Government: Research and Practice
Digital Government: Research and Practice  Volume 2, Issue 1
COVID-19 Commentaries
January 2021
116 pages
EISSN:2639-0175
DOI:10.1145/3434277
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 November 2020
Online AM: 30 October 2020
Accepted: 01 October 2020
Revised: 01 September 2020
Received: 01 August 2020
Published in DGOV Volume 2, Issue 1

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. CARES Act
  2. COVID-19
  3. Unemployment insurance
  4. cloud managed services
  5. legacy systems
  6. pandemic unemployment assistance

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed

Funding Sources

  • National Science Foundation

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)235
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)24
Reflects downloads up to 27 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Protecting Sensitive Data with Secure Data EnclavesDigital Government: Research and Practice10.1145/36436865:2(1-11)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2024
  • (2022)Predicting Divertible Medicaid Emergency Department CostsDigital Government: Research and Practice10.1145/35486923:3(1-19)Online publication date: 14-Oct-2022

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Login options

Full Access

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media