SUMMARY

As of October 10, 2020, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) had paid 493,504 of the 662,731 individuals (74.5 percent) who had filed initial claims for regular program benefits since March 15, 2020. DWD paid 53.2 percent of these claims in two calendar weeks or less, but it took more than five weeks to pay 24.7 percent of them. To determine how DWD processed initial claims, we selected a statistically significant random sample of 268 individuals who filed initial claims for regular program benefits from March 15, 2020, through April 11, 2020, but had not been paid them as of June 20, 2020. We found DWD was responsible for 11.0 of the 13.0 weeks it took, on average, to resolve the initial claims of 250 of the 268 individuals.