{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-sanders-to-labor-secretary-new-unemployment-benefits-pilot-program-may-lead-to-delayed-disrupted-benefits", "Warren, Sanders to Labor Secretary: New Unemployment Benefits Pilot Program May Lead to Delayed, Disrupted Benefits", "2025-12-17", "2025", "2025-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", "warren", "https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Warren, Sanders to Labor Secretary: New Unemployment Benefits Pilot Program May Lead to Delayed, Disrupted Benefits\n\nSenators warn Labor Department\u2019s limited capacity could result in improperly denying Americans their benefits or exposing their personal data\n\n\u201cUnemployment benefits are a vital income support for workers as they look for a new job\u2026Mishandling these claims can mean delayed or disrupted payments to Americans who need\u2014and deserve\u2014the unemployment benefits they are entitled to.\u201d\n\nText of Letter (PDF)\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote to Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL), Lori Chavez-DeRemer, with concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s new pilot program to begin intaking state unemployment claims at the federal level.\n\nRecent reporting reveals that DOL plans to launch a new platform called \u201cunemployment.gov\u201d that would give the Trump administration a \u201cmore active role in processing unemployment claims.\u201d This platform would reportedly intake initial unemployment claims for participating states, which includes verifying claimants\u2019 identity and work authorization. DOL announced plans to test this platform with a select number of states by the end of 2025. However, the agency has not yet clarified how it will implement this pilot, who will have access to the data it collects, or how it would use this data. This launch comes just months after DOL proposed a rule requiring states to \u201chand over\u201d their unemployment claims information.\n\nSince the start of the second Trump administration, DOL has cut about 20 percent of its workforce. About 75 percent of the agency\u2019s staff was also furloughed due to Republicans\u2019 government shutdown, raising questions about the department\u2019s ability to roll out this pilot program by the end of the year. The agency also has not announced which states will participate and what criteria was used to determine this list of states.\n\n\u201cDOL appears dangerously unprepared to handle unemployment claims intake, which could have severe financial impacts on claimants in their times of need\u2026This raises concerns about DOL\u2019s capacity to handle its basic statutory functions\u2014let alone take on other responsibilities,\u201d wrote the senators.\n\nIf DOL mishandles claims intake as a result of its limited capacity, benefits may be delayed or disrupted to those filing for unemployment, leaving them at risk of food, medical, and housing insecurity. Poorly handling these claims also increases the risk of improper payments and benefit denials.\n\nThe senators also raised concerns about the Trump administration\u2019s record of mishandling personal data, like its\u2019 storing sensitive Social Security data on vulnerable cloud servers and erroneously placing thousands of living Americans on the Social Security Administration\u2019s Death Master File. The pilot program would give DOL and the rest of the administration access to sensitive information that would ostensibly be fed into its national database of unemployment claims, which poses major privacy risks.\n\n\u201c[T]his new pilot\u2026amplifies our concerns that DOL will use this data as part of the Administration\u2019s effort to combine all agencies\u2019 data into a master database, which experts have warned that the Administration could abuse to crack down on political opposition\u2014or simply sell to the highest bidder,\u201d wrote the senators.\n\n\u201c[R]ushing to launch a pilot program while your agency is struggling to keep up with its other duties\u2014and with little to no guardrails for how you will treat the sensitive personal and financial data this pilot would collect\u2014is not the way to modernize [unemployment insurance],\u201d concluded the senators.\n\nThe senators asked Secretary DeRemer to provide, by January 7, 2026, details on the new pilot program, including what states will participate, the cost of the pilot program, what data will be collected, how the agency plans to store and protect that data, and an explanation of why the department is moving forward with the pilot program when the department is at reduced capacity.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:09:11Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-sanders-to-labor-secretary-new-unemployment-benefits-pilot-program-may-lead-to-delayed-disrupted-benefits"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7954670581966639, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}