Contract No.: F-6828-8-00-80-30 (06)

MPR Reference No.: 8726-500

Evaluation of the 

Significant Improvement 

Demonstration Grants for 

the Provision of 

Reemployment Services 

for UI Claimants 

Final Report

July 30, 2002

Karen Needels 

Walter Corson 

Michelle Van Noy 

Submitted to: 

U.S. Department of Labor 

ETA/OPR 

200 Constitution Ave., NW 

Room N-5631 

Washington, DC 20210 

Project Officer: 

 Crystal Woodard 

Submitted by: 

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. 

P.O. Box 2393 

Princeton, NJ 08543-2393 

(609) 799-3535 

Project Director: 

Karen Needels 

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

This Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants (SIGs) required both 

extensive data collection from the 11 states that received grants from the U.S. Department of 

Labor (DOL) and guidance and assistance from DOL. State staff members involved in the grant 

efforts provided a wealth of information during in-person visits to the states and in many 

conversations during the evaluation. The state SIG coordinators also provided valuable 

assistance in coordinating the visits, ensuring that we could meet with key staff members, that 

we could observe reemployment services at one-stops or local offices, and that logistical issues 

pertaining to the visits were handled smoothly. Many one-stop staff members kindly allowed us 

to observe the services they provided to claimants and took the time to answer our questions. 

We greatly appreciate the help of all these staff members in the SIG states. 

At DOL, we received guidance and support from Wayne Gordon, our project officer during 

most of the first year of the evaluation, and Crystal Woodard, who took over this responsibility 

for the rest of the time. Scott Gibbons, John Heinberg, Esther Johnson, and Diane Wood also 

provided valuable advice at many points throughout the evaluation. These individuals and others 

at DOL provided many useful comments on the evaluation’s design and interim reports and on a 

draft of the final report. DOL’s Regional Office staff members involved in the SIGs helped us 

contact state staff members and provided comments on reports. Cindy Ambler, Stephanie 

Cabell, Robert Horstman, and Louis Lapides provided the state-level data that we used to 

examine claimant outcomes. 

Many individuals at MPR contributed in substantive ways to the evaluation and also deserve 

thanks. Walter Corson participated in all aspects of the evaluation: the design phase, the 

intensive data collection efforts, and the report writing. Michelle VanNoy joined the team as we 

began the data collection efforts and played an important role in these efforts and in the report 

writing. Irma Perez-Johnson provided valuable comments that led to greatly improved reports. 

Walter Brower edited the final report, and Caroline McMahon produced it. 

 Karen Needels 

 Project Director 

v 

CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.........................................................................................xiii 

I INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 

A. THE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT GRANTS................................................ 2 

B. EVALUATION OBJECTIVES .............................................................................. 4 

C. OUTLINE OF THIS REPORT ............................................................................. 10 

II CHANGES TO THE IDENTIFICATION AND SELECTION OF CLAIMANTS 

MOST IN NEED OF REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES .............................................. 11 

A. A STYLIZED MODEL OF WPRS SYSTEMS.................................................... 13 

B. SPEEDING THE IDENTIFICATION OF CLAIMANTS AT A HIGH RISK 

OF EXHAUSTING UI BENEFITS ...................................................................... 18 

1. Potential Advantages and Disadvantages to Profiling at Initial Claim ......... 19 

2. The Current Status of Changing the Timing of Call-Ins for Services—

The Experiences of Other States ................................................................... 26 

3. Identifying and Serving Claimants from Targeted Industries—North 

Carolina’s Experience ................................................................................... 28 

C. EXPANDING THE POOL OF WPRS ELIGIBLES ............................................ 29 

1. Including Short-Duration Claimants—Minnesota’s Experience .................. 31 

2. Including Additional Claimants in the Selection Pool—Washington’s 

Approach ....................................................................................................... 33 

3. Including TAA/NAFTA-TAA Eligible Claimants in the Selection 

Pool—Alaska’s Change ................................................................................ 34 

4. Using Other Methods to Increase the Number of Claimants in the 

Selection Pool—Experiences of Alaska, Louisiana, and West Virginia....... 35 

D. IMPROVING THE CLAIMANT SELECTION PROCESS ................................ 36 

1. Updates to the Profiling Model’s Specification ............................................ 38 

2. Simplifications to the Process for Conducting Future Model Updates......... 43 

3. Methods to Identify Better Model Fits.......................................................... 44 

4. Limitations in How a Better Model Specification Affects Service 

Delivery......................................................................................................... 48 

III IMPROVING REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES.......................................................... 51 

A. IMPROVING ORIENTATION AND REEMPLOYMENT WORKSHOPS....... 53 

1. Improving Workshops Through Centralized Training and Standardized 

Materials—Louisiana, South Carolina, New York, and Maryland............... 56 
CONTENTS (continued)

Chapter Page 

vi

2. Promoting Local Office Innovation in Workshop Style and Content—

Wisconsin...................................................................................................... 59 

3. Developing an Ongoing Dialogue Among WPRS Staff—Alaska ................ 60 

B. STRENGTHENING THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS........................................ 61 

1. Linking Claimants to Appropriate Reemployment Services—

Washington and New York ........................................................................... 63 

2. Better Identifying Personal Barriers to Reemployment—Minnesota and 

Alaska............................................................................................................ 65 

C. ENHANCING FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES........................................................ 67 

1. Reminding Claimants of the Availability of Services—Wisconsin, 

Minnesota, and Washington.......................................................................... 68 

2. Requiring Follow-Up Services—South Carolina, North Carolina, New 

York, and Washington................................................................................... 70 

3. Improving Information on Claimants’ Employment Status—Louisiana, 

South Carolina, and Wisconsin ..................................................................... 73 

D. FACILITATING USE OF SELF-ACCESS RESOURCES ................................. 74 

1. Teaching Claimants How to Use Computers for Their Job Searches—

California....................................................................................................... 75 

2. Encouraging Widespread Use of Career Exploration Tools or Computer 

Skills Training Software—New York and Alaska........................................ 81 

3. Enhancing the Accessibility of Internet Resources—Louisiana ................... 82 

E. INCREASING SERVICE CAPACITY................................................................ 83 

IV IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG PROGRAMS AND AGENCIES .......... 87 

A. STRENGTHENING DATA SYSTEMS THAT SUPPORT WPRS 

OPERATIONS...................................................................................................... 88 

1. Strengthening the Profiling/Call-In Link—The Experiences of 

Maryland and Washington ............................................................................ 90 

2. Strengthening the Link from the Service Delivery System to the UI 

System—Maryland, Minnesota, and Alaska................................................. 93 

3. Improving Data Systems to Enhance Service Delivery and Performance 

Monitoring..................................................................................................... 96 

B. IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG AGENCIES AND OFFICES....... 103 

III 

(continued) 
CONTENTS (continued)

Chapter Page 

vii

V. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY............................................. 107 

A. IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES .................................................................. 108 

1. The Profiling Model and Claimant Selection.............................................. 109 

2. Service Delivery.......................................................................................... 114 

3. Data Systems ............................................................................................... 118 

B. INFERENCES ABOUT WPRS SYSTEMS NATIONWIDE ............................ 120 

1. Components and Goals of WPRS Systems ................................................. 121 

2. Patterns of States in Providing Key WPRS Components ........................... 122 

3. Trade-Offs in Designing WPRS Systems ................................................... 130 

C. INFERENCES ABOUT THE WIA .................................................................... 138 

1. At The Time of Our Visits, States Varied Significantly in Their 

Implementation of the One-Stop System .................................................... 140 

2. States Are Challenged When Integrating Data Systems to Provide Better 

Customer Service and Implement Performance Monitoring....................... 141 

3. Strong State-Level Leadership Can Facilitate Implementation of WIA 

One-Stops. ................................................................................................... 141 

4. Mechanisms for the Appropriate Referral of WPRS Clients to WIA 

Services Are Important................................................................................ 142 

5. A Few States Reported That Their Transition to WIA Had Some 

Negative Effects on Their Ability to Conduct WPRS Activities. ............... 143 

REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 147 

APPENDIX A: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF CLAIMANT OUTCOMES.... A.1 

APPENDIX B: DESCRIPTIONS OF AND CONTACT INFORMATION FOR 

INNOVATIVE STATE ACTIVITIES.............................................B.1 

ix

TABLES 

Table Page 

 I.1 MAIN ACTIVITIES FOR SIG STATES ....................................................... 3 

 I.2 KEY COMPONENTS OF SIG STATES’ GRANT ACTIVITIES ................ 5 

 II.1 TIMING OF SIG RECIPIENT STATES’ PROFILING............................... 20 

 II.2 MAJOR CHANGES TO STATES’ MODEL SPECIFICATIONS .............. 39 

 III.1 REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES IN SIG STATES...................................... 52 

 V.1 IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE 

THE PROFILING MODEL........................................................................ 110 

 V.2 IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE 

SERVICE DELIVERY ............................................................................... 116 

 V.3 IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE 

DATA SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONAL LINKAGES ........................... 119 

 V.4 CLAIMANT GROUPS INCLUDED IN WPRS PROFILING AND 

ORIENTATION.......................................................................................... 131 

 V.5 EFFECTS OF WPRS ON WEEKS OF UI BENEFITS PAID ................... 134 

 A.1 HYPOTHESIZED EFFECTS OF SIG ACTIVITIES ON CLAIMANT 

OUTCOMES............................................................................................... A.6 

A.2 HYPOTHESIZED CHANGES IN CLAIMANT OUTCOMES FOR SIG 

STATES ...................................................................................................... A.9 

 A.3 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE OUTCOMES OF SIG STATES ..... A.10 

 A.4 REFERRAL AND SERVICE OUTCOMES OF SIG STATES............... A.12 

A.5 NONSEPARATION DETERMINATIONS AND DENIALS ................. A.14 

A.6 NONSEPARATION DETERMINATIONS AND DENIALS FOR 

PROFILING REFERRAL REFUSALS.................................................... A.15 

xi

FIGURES 

Figure Page 

 II.1 STYLIZED WPRS SYSTEM ..................................................................... 14 



xiii

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

In 1993, Public Law 103-52 amended the Social Security Act by requiring states to establish 

Worker Profiling and Reemployment Service (WPRS) systems whose objectives were to identify 

claimants likely to exhaust unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, refer them to reemployment 

services, and collect follow-up information on such services received and on employment 

outcomes. Reemployment services vary widely but often include an orientation workshop that 

provides an overview of available services; group workshops on topics such as resume writing, 

interviewing skills, local labor market information, and coping with job loss; staff-assisted or 

self-service use of career assessment tools and job listings; job clubs; and other activities to help 

claimants during their UI claim periods to find an appropriate job quickly and efficiently. The 

law also required claimants who were referred to services to participate in those or similar 

services as a condition for UI eligibility, unless they had just cause for not doing so. The intent 

of the legislation was to allocate reemployment services efficiently to UI claimants most likely to 

need assistance in finding employment (U.S. Department of Labor 1993). Research had also 

suggested that providing reemployment services to UI claimants was an effective strategy to 

reduce average durations of UI benefit receipt (Meyer 1995). 

Since the legislation was enacted, all states have established WPRS systems, but the systems 

could be improved in several areas. An external evaluation and an internal review by the U.S. 

Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) (U.S. Department 

of Labor 1999a and 1999b) suggested updating and revising profiling models more often, 

increasing resources to serve more claimants, intensifying services, providing flexibility to shift 

resources across geographic areas to respond to needs, improving the data systems used to track 

services and outcomes, and furthering coordination and linkages among UI, Employment 

Services (ES), and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs. 

In response to these findings, DOL/ETA awarded Significant Improvement Demonstration 

Grants (SIGs) to 11 states to improve reemployment services for UI claimants: Alaska, 

California, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, 

Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The two-year SIGs were intended to increase the 

effectiveness of reemployment services for UI claimants by improving the WPRS systems in 

grantee states. Further goals of the grants were to help shape future policy directions for 

reemployment services for UI claimants and to support implementation of the WIA. 

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) has conducted a process/implementation 

evaluation of these grants. The evaluation comprised documenting the changes made with the 

SIGs and assessing the degree to which the proposed activities were implemented. We also 

documented reasons that states deviated from their implementation plans, when they did so, and 

provided implications of the SIG experiences for policy. 

This final report describes findings from data collection activities conducted during 2000 

and 2001. These activities included in-person visits to the 11 SIG states and telephone 

interviews with their staff. The staff we spoke with included SIG coordinators; UI, ES, WIA, 

and Management Information Systems (MIS) staff at the central office; and management and 
xiv

reemployment services staff who conduct WPRS activities in the local offices and one-stops. 

The data collection also included a review of the grant proposals and relevant documents 

provided to DOL or for states’ own internal use, as well as an analysis of state-level data on UI 

program activities and reemployment services provided as part of the states’ reporting 

requirements to DOL. 

We supplement our discussion of SIG-funded activities with information on some of the 

other innovative approaches states have taken to WPRS service delivery, even approaches not 

funded by the SIGs. We noted these improvements in their UI and one-stop systems to provide a 

comprehensive overview of the service delivery mechanisms of the 11 SIG states, as well as the 

associated strengths and potential pitfalls, so that DOL and other states can benefit. 

This final report is an update to and an expansion of an interim report that described early 

implementation activities of the states, the problems encountered, and the lessons learned. 

Important expansions to the report include additional site-specific and cross-site lessons based on 

the full two years of SIG states’ activities and a discussion of how patterns found across the SIG 

states illustrate how states may have difficulty achieving WPRS objectives. We also examine 

whether quantitative analysis of changes in service use and UI benefit receipt through pre-postgrant comparisons provides further information on the effects of the SIG efforts. However, this 

data analysis could not detect systematic patterns in the data over time. Many possible reasons 

for this exist, such as the effects of other factors on claimant outcomes (like changes in the 

economy or the broader UI and reemployment service system), poor data quality or changes in 

data quality, and the use of state-level data when SIG activities in some states were conducted 

only in some local offices. In addition, many of the grant activities, such as improvements in 

interagency coordination, are important but are likely to affect client outcomes only in the long 

run. We therefore view the primary contributions of this evaluation final report to be qualitative, 

with most of the lessons drawn from the implementation experiences of the states. 

The activities of the 11 states awarded grants in June 1999 can be grouped into three main 

categories: (1) changing the mechanisms to identify and select claimants most in need of 

reemployment services, (2) improving these services, and (3) improving coordination among 

programs and agencies. Within these broad categories, the SIG states used a wide variety of 

approaches to improve their WPRS systems. Each state’s experience was different because of 

the uniqueness of its SIG plans, its existing UI and reemployment services delivery system, and 

state labor market characteristics. Although there are patterns in the ways states used the grant 

money, these 11 different experiences provide a rich array of designs and approaches to ensure 

that claimants most in need of reemployment services receive them in a timely, effective way. 

CHANGING THE MECHANISMS TO IDENTIFY AND SELECT CLAIMANTS 

MOST IN NEED OF REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

A number of states used grant funds to address weaknesses in their WPRS systems resulting 

from delays in claimants’ participation in reemployment services, low levels of participation, or 

poor identification of claimants most in need. The main strategies used to do so were: 
xv

• Developing Systems to Select Claimants for Services After Their Initial Claims. 

Calling in claimants at initial claim rather than first payment can reduce the length of 

time to service receipt, speed their return to work, and reduce their UI benefits. 

However, such profiling involves trade-offs. After changing to initial-claim profiling, 

Minnesota gave local offices discretion about whether to call in claimants with 

separation issues or denials. In contrast, Alaska had planned to change to profiling at 

initial claim but, because of concerns about the increased staff burden from serving 

more claimants and investigating the situations of claimants in denial periods, decided 

against doing so. South Carolina changed to initial-claim profiling but encountered 

problems calling in claimants who were ineligible for benefits. States that switched 

to initial-claim profiling were generally successful at reducing time to service receipt. 

• Expanding the Group of Claimants in the WPRS Selection Pools. Some states 

originally excluded some claimants from their profiling selection pools because of the 

statistical complexity in calculating scores for them or difficulties accessing the 

necessary data. Several SIG states developed mechanisms to include groups that had 

previously been excluded, such as claimants with short potential durations or missing 

scores. Washington originally planned to include additional initial claimants in the 

WPRS process so that local office staff could invite them to attend reemployment 

services; however, the state developed a simpler strategy. Generally, including more 

claimants in the WPRS process means that more claimants may be required to 

participate in services when offices have the capacity to serve them. When a one-stop 

cannot serve all claimants in its pool, increasing the number of claimants in the pool 

may alter who is called in for services but will not increase the number served. 

• Improving the Statistical Precision of Profiling Models. Several states included 

additional variables or reconfigured variables already in their models. Most states did 

so within the SIG period; those that did not alter how claimants in a local office are 

ranked faced constraints on the availability of programming resources. Many model 

changes may result in a better identification of high-risk claimants and a greater 

likelihood that these claimants will be served. However, some model changes, using 

characteristics that vary only across offices, will not affect how claimants in each 

office are ranked unless service delivery resources can be shifted from one 

geographic area to another. More generally, states were challenged in figuring out 

how to specify their models and implement diagnostics tests. They may benefit from 

more DOL assistance for the task. 

IMPROVING REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

Delivering reemployment services is central to WPRS’s goal of promoting reemployment 

and reducing UI duration. Many states used their SIG funds to improve reemployment service 

delivery or increase their capacity to offer these services. Their main approaches were: 

• Improving Orientation and Reemployment Workshops. Several states used the SIG 

to improve and standardize the content and style of workshops that one-stops offer, 

with the common goal of increasing claimant participation and engagement. They 

also updated the information presented to incorporate changes resulting from 
xvi

implementation of WIA and new technologies and resources available in one-stops. 

In several states, central office staff revamped their workshops and trained local 

office staff on the changes. In contrast, Wisconsin asked several local office staff to 

assess and improve their workshops. Alaska facilitated sharing of workshop 

strategies among local office staff through regularly scheduled teleconferences and 

workshops.

• Strengthening the Assessment Process. Four states used the SIG to strengthen the 

ability of staff to tailor service plans to the unique needs of individual claimants. 

Minnesota and Washington developed assessment forms to identify claimants’ needs 

for reemployment services. Alaska and Minnesota also examined strategies to 

identify sensitive personal barriers that might interfere with reemployment. New 

York used SIG funds to provide local offices with commercial career assessment 

software. As part of these efforts, these states established confidentiality policies. 

• Enhancing Follow-Up Activities. Several states used the SIG to strengthen claimants’

involvement in reemployment services during their UI claim periods. Wisconsin 

developed procedures for contacting claimants at specific intervals to encourage 

voluntary participation. Other states developed and implemented requirements for 

claimants who continue to collect UI benefits, often tying these activities to eligibility 

reviews. These and other follow-up activities facilitate learning about claimants’

employment statuses, which can improve statistics on claimant outcomes.

• Facilitating Receipt of Self-Access Services. WIA’s emphasis on self-service 

activities, along with changes in technology, has influenced state approaches to selfaccess services. Several states encouraged the use of new technology by making 

computers, the Internet, and computer-based resources more available. All states, in 

their regular operations, provide one-on-one staff assistance or special workshops on 

the use of new technology, but California explored making such assistance a formal 

part of WPRS. California developed and pilot-tested a WPRS orientation workshop 

component to teach claimants how to use the Internet to find jobs.

• Increasing Service Capacity. Because WPRS is designed to allocate resources to 

claimants most likely to exhaust UI benefits, North Carolina, West Virginia, and 

Wisconsin allocated new SIG-funded staff to areas with either historically low service 

capacity or anticipated high needs. North Carolina specifically targeted workers from 

declining industries to receive intensive reemployment services.

States generally were successful at implementing their proposed improvements to 

service delivery. A key element of their success was that central office staff directing the 

SIG efforts either had the authority to implement changes and train local office staff about 

them or had well-established procedures to work with staff who did have such authority.

IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG PROGRAMS AND AGENCIES 

For WPRS systems to be successful, good linkages are needed among UI, ES, and WIA data 

systems and agency staff. Developing good data linkages is challenging, since, in most states, 
xvii

these three programs have separate data systems. Developing linkages and fostering cooperation 

among staff is also difficult. The goals of the programs differ, and they are managed separately, 

sometimes through different agencies and levels of government. 

Several SIG states used some of their grant funds to address these coordination issues, 

particularly linkages among data systems. The main data system improvements they made were: 

• Improving the Link Between Identification of WPRS-Eligible Claimants and the 

Call-In Process for Local Office Services. Maryland developed a new local-officebased WPRS data system that reduced the time between initial claims and delivery of 

reemployment services. Washington made similar improvements to its system prior 

to the SIG and considered further improvements, but it put those plans on hold 

pending development of a new one-stop operating system. 

• Improving the Link from Service Delivery to UI Adjudication. The switch to remote 

initial-claims filing makes this link important, since adjudicators are no longer based 

in local offices. Several SIG states developed electronic forms to replace manual 

communication systems. 

• Enhancing Reemployment Service Delivery and Performance Monitoring. The SIG 

states used several approaches to achieve this objective. 

- Improving Links Among Data Systems and Providing Wider Access to 

Multiple Data Systems. Linking data systems reduces the need to enter data 

in more than one system. Several states worked on these improvements to 

enable staff in different programs to cross-reference services and benefits their 

clients receive from other programs. 

- Creating Local Office Claimant-Level Reports. Louisiana and South 

Carolina created additional claimant-level reports to enable local offices to 

monitor and manage their workloads better, to identify claimants who need 

follow-up calls to offer additional services, or to record information on 

obtained employment. 

- Creating Local Office Summary Reports. Alaska, South Carolina, and 

Washington created summary reports to measure and monitor performance. 

In Washington’s case, links were developed among separate data systems so 

that a cross-program measure of the percent of benefits collected could be 

used. This measure, calculated for profiled claimants who are called in for 

services and who attend at least one workshop, relies on data from both UI 

and ES programs. 

Many of these data system changes were successfully implemented within the grant period, 

but because WPRS operates in a broader program environment, some states encountered 

difficulty. Four states developed ways to improve their tracking systems, but they decided 

against implementing at least one piece of the improvements because the WPRS computer 

systems are part of a larger computer system undergoing changes over several years. 
xviii

Several SIG states also tried to improve coordination and cooperation among programs and 

between central and local office staff, such as by using some of the data system improvements 

listed earlier. States used cross-office training sessions to standardize the delivery of services, 

and Alaska also used them to build relationships among staff from different agencies. That state 

used annual statewide conferences and monthly teleconferences as forums for various agencies 

to describe their programs to WPRS staff, with the goal of promoting referrals for profiled 

claimants. Finally, South Carolina used its SIG to fund field coordinators to improve 

communication between the central office and the local offices throughout the state. 

INFERENCES ABOUT WPRS SYSTEMS NATIONWIDE 

Collectively, the 11 SIG states represent a range of strategies for operating WPRS systems, 

and their systems are probably typical of those of other states. With this in mind, we used our indepth analysis of the experiences of the SIG states to identify several broad patterns about WPRS 

systems nationwide. We found that: 

• States may not have proper allocations of resources across geographic regions to 

serve the highest-risk claimants. Distributional issues within a state may prevent 

some offices from targeting services to claimants with the highest profiling scores, 

even when the WPRS model identifies them as most in need. These resource 

misallocations may arise from historical patterns in funding allocations across regions 

within a state or from political considerations. Temporary supplemental funds, such 

as the SIGs, can supplement other funding sources by giving states more flexibility in 

directing reemployment services to clients who need them most. 

• States may not be providing intensive and individualized services, coupled with 

enforcement, as envisioned for WPRS. The services we observed in most SIG states 

were not as intensive or individualized as those envisioned for WPRS (U.S. 

Department of Labor 1999b). Although the types of services offered may vary across 

local offices within a state and according to variations in WPRS workloads over time, 

most states used one of two possible strategies for providing services. Some provided 

intensive services, which were minimally individualized, by requiring all WPRS 

claimants to participate in an in-depth workshop that provided advice on a wide range 

of job search strategies and lasted up to 10 hours. Others provided individualized 

services that were not likely to be as intensive. These states required WPRSmandated claimants to participate in a brief orientation that covered the availability of 

services and sometimes an introduction to job search strategies. Some states required 

a follow-up service (often selected by the claimants and usually of short duration and 

low intensity) or one-on-one meetings with staff. Other states required no follow-up 

services. Staff frequently were reluctant to assign and enforce participation in followup services based on their subjective assessments of a claimant’s need. 

• States varied in the strength of their operational linkages between agencies. States 

varied widely in their coordination between UI, JS, and WIA. In several cases, statelevel staff involved in the SIG activities commented that the WPRS program is 

perceived as being run primarily by only one agency (usually either UI or ES). 

WPRS tasks and authority may have been divided among agencies when the system 

was designed (in the mid-1990s). One or more agencies within a state may have 
xix

failed to become involved in the continual efforts needed to update and improve the 

system so that potential UI exhaustees are correctly identified, referred to services, 

and tracked to ensure that their needs are met. This challenge may be exacerbated by 

the lack of a separate WPRS funding stream. For more effective WPRS programs, 

states may need to exert deliberate efforts to strengthen their linkages between the 

programs that serve claimants the WPRS system identifies as likely exhaustees. 

• Some states were developing non-WPRS orientation workshops to introduce 

claimants to services and considering how to integrate them with WPRS. Some 

policymakers have been concerned that remote initial-claim filing will reduce the 

likelihood that claimants will go voluntarily to ES—because claimants are not already 

in local offices and because call center workers are unlikely to make systematic 

referrals to reemployment services (U.S. Department of Labor 2000). The WPRS 

system may counteract this concern in part, since it requires some claimants to visit a 

local office early in their spells to learn about services. However, other claimants 

may not systematically be made aware of and be offered services. As a result, some 

SIG states have begun developing procedures to inform most or all non-job-attached 

claimants of services by requiring them to participate in orientation workshops that 

are independent of WPRS. These SIG states were investigating ways either to 

integrate this workshop with the WPRS-mandated orientation workshop for selected 

claimants or to ensure that the information presented was not redundant. However, 

these states have not yet had the opportunity to refine their processes and offer 

lessons about the most efficient use of staff’s and claimants’ time. 

We also identified ways in which states may encounter trade-offs in designing or 

modifying their WPRS systems: 

• Changing from profiling at first payment to at initial claim may influence a state’s 

ability to target services and decrease trust fund expenditures. Changing profiling 

from at first payment to at initial claim is likely to improve a state’s ability to provide 

services earlier in claimants’ UI spells. States may expect this to lead to decreased UI 

durations and trust fund expenditures. However, these intended results may not 

occur, because initial-claim profiling is likely to reduce a state’s ability to target 

services to potential UI exhaustees. Some claimants who do not receive benefits and 

claimants who receive only a few weeks of benefits may be called in for services. 

The later service delivery is, the higher is the concentration of potential exhaustees 

who receive those services, and the better targeted those services are. For a fixed 

level of resources, therefore, it is an empirical question whether profiling at first 

payment or at initial claim is more effective at reducing weeks of UI benefits paid and 

trust fund expenditures. Policymakers also may want to weigh the effects of 

providing services to unemployed workers who are disqualified from UI but are at a 

high risk of long unemployment durations in their decision making. 

• States face trade-offs between ensuring claimant cooperation in service receipt and 

enforcing participation requirements. States grappled with how to achieve a 

cooperative and constructive relationship with claimants while simultaneously 

enforcing participation requirements. Different states may choose different strategies 
xx

for balancing these issues, but their decision influences their ability to achieve other 

WPRS system objectives, such as early intervention and efficient use of staff time. 

When claimants who do not show up for services fail to contact the local office to 

provide a reason and reschedule, the state must decide how to respond to this 

nonparticipation. Some SIG states give claimants several chances to attend an 

orientation session before they are subject to adjudication. As a result, some 

claimants who eventually receive WPRS services may do so quite late in their 

unemployment spells, which would reduce the potential benefits of early intervention. 

However, allowing claimants more than one opportunity to participate may avoid 

unnecessary adjudications. In contrast, other SIG states instruct local office staff to 

report a no-show for UI adjudication the first time a claimant fails to report to a 

WPRS activity. This speedy enforcement of requirements may help ensure that 

claimants who receive services do so early in their unemployment spells. However, it 

may hinder a cooperative relationship between claimants and staff when the claimants 

eventually do participate, and adjudication rates are likely to increase. If the 

adjudication identifies primarily claimants who failed to show for just cause, then 

workloads for adjudication staff may increase without saving UI trust funds or 

improving program integrity. However, if the quick referral to adjudication is 

accurately identifying uncooperative claimants, denials also will increase and 

program integrity may be improved. 

INFERENCES ABOUT THE WIA 

We also used our data collection efforts to identify several patterns across states as they 

implemented WIA and integrated WPRS activities in their one-stop environments. Efforts to 

improve their UI and reemployment services systems most directly pertained to the key WIA 

principles of streamlining services, providing universal access, empowering individuals, and 

increasing accountability. States and one-stop staff reported that these efforts were ongoing. 

At the time of our visits to states, the states varied significantly in their implementation of 

the one-stop system. We encountered positive instances of states or one-stops that had made 

considerable progress toward integration or that were actively working toward this goal. We 

also encountered other instances in which one-stops still needed to overcome large barriers, such 

as ensuring that the partners had an adequate one-stop presence, that space was available to 

conduct activities, and that partners were satisfied with the cost-sharing arrangements. These 

issues will need to be addressed to foster greater cross-program cooperation and integration at 

the local level. 

States reported facing several struggles when trying to integrate data systems. These 

included difficulty because of the complexity of the process and inability to obtain enough staff 

time to overcome the programming hurdles. They also included issues surrounding the 

confidentiality of the data and concerns about improving existing systems when major upgrades 

were expected. Often, systems integration lagged behind other aspects of WIA implementation. 

Nevertheless, state staff recognized the potential benefit of data systems integration to help 

achieve WIA goals, such as providing better customer service and developing performance 

measures. 
xxi

Strong state-level leadership may be able to make successful implementation of the WIA 

easier. This may be true both as agencies undergo organizational changes and as these systems 

are refined in response to changes in the program environment and local labor market. 

The WPRS system is a key mechanism to introduce claimants to WIA services, so states 

need to ensure that WPRS staff can make appropriate referrals. Many staff members reported 

that the WPRS system is an important method to bring customers to the one-stop, possibly 

especially so in states that no longer require in-person filing of UI claims. However, WPRS and 

many of the SIG-funded improvements have focused on the linkage between the UI and ES 

programs and data systems, rather than on linkages with partner agencies. States and one-stop 

agencies need to ensure that the WPRS system is fully integrated with other one-stop services 

and that staff who provide these services can make comprehensive and appropriate referrals so 

that WPRS claimants can better use the full range of services available to them. 

Some state and one-stop staff expressed optimism about the effects of the WIA on their 

ability to administer the WPRS system and serve UI claimants, through increased availability of 

services, the ability to make more appropriate service referrals, and enhanced quality of services. 

However, some staff reported drawbacks that have occurred as part of the transition process. 

These included decreased funding to provide WPRS services or the inability to use WIA funds 

for WPRS services and inabilities to expand WPRS services because of space constraints in the 

one-stops. In addition, states may still be trying to decide how best to meet the needs of WPRS 

claimants upon implementation of the WIA regulations and the development of one-stops. Care 

should be taken to ensure that states and one-stops implement the WIA in a way that encourages 

claimants to benefit from both the WPRS system and WIA so that they receive better services 

and obtain better post-UI labor market outcomes than before.

1

I. INTRODUCTION 

In 1993, Public Law 103-52 amended the Social Security Act by requiring states to establish 

Worker Profiling and Reemployment Service (WPRS) systems, whose objectives were to 

identify claimants likely to exhaust unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, refer such claimants 

to reemployment services, and collect follow-up information on reemployment services received 

and employment outcomes obtained. The law also required that claimants referred to services 

participate in those or similar services as a condition for UI eligibility, unless the claimant had 

already completed similar services or had a justifiable cause for not participating. The intent of 

the legislation was to allocate reemployment services efficiently to UI claimants most likely to 

need assistance in finding employment (U.S. Department of Labor 1993). Research had also 

suggested that providing reemployment services to UI claimants was an effective policy strategy 

to reduce average durations of UI benefit receipt (Meyer 1995). 

Since the legislation was enacted, all states have implemented WPRS systems. However, 

the systems could be improved in a number of areas, and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) 

sponsored two reviews to determine where these improvements could be made. An external 

evaluation (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b) (1) monitored state implementation of WPRS 

systems through case studies of the first six states to operate such systems, (2) surveyed all states 

to investigate how they were implementing their systems, and (3) examined the impacts of 

WPRS on the UI benefit receipt and employment and earnings of claimants referred to it. An 

internal DOL/Employment and Training Administration (ETA) review (U.S. Department of 

Labor 1999a) by a WPRS Policy Workgroup composed of state, regional, and federal workforce 

development staff examined how the systems evolved between 1994 and 1998 and made 

recommendations toward making them more effective in helping dislocated workers find jobs as 
2

rapidly as possible at wages comparable to those they had been earning. These two reviews 

suggested improvements in the following areas: 

• Profiling Models. Update and revise models more frequently. Ensure that claimants 

most likely to exhaust their benefits are referred for services. 

• Reemployment Services. Increase resources for services to greater numbers of 

claimants and increase the intensity of services. Provide flexibility to shift resources 

across geographic areas to respond to needs. 

• Tracking Systems. Improve the data systems used to track services and outcomes. 

• Overall Coordination. Improve coordination and linkages among UI, Employment 

Services (ES), and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs.1

In response to these findings, DOL/ETA awarded significant improvement demonstration 

grants (SIGs) to 11 states to improve reemployment services for UI claimants (U.S. Department 

of Labor 1999a): Alaska, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, North 

Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. 

A. THE SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT GRANTS 

The two-year SIGs were intended to “increase the effectiveness of reemployment services 

for UI claimants” by improving the WPRS systems in grantee states (U.S. Department of Labor 

1999a). Further goals of the grants were to help shape future policy directions for reemployment 

services for UI claimants and to support implementation of the WIA. The activities of the 11 

states awarded grants in June 1999 can be grouped into three main categories (Table I.1). Some 

states strove to improve the identification and selection of claimants most in need of 

reemployment services by speeding the identification of claimants at a high risk of exhausting UI 

 1

States were making transitions during the pre-grant and grant periods from Job Training 

Partnership Act and Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance programs to WIA 

programs. For ease of reference throughout this report, however, we refer to these types of 

service delivery programs as WIA programs. 
3 

TABLE I.1 

MAIN ACTIVITIES FOR SIG STATES 

Significant Improvement Grant States 

 AK CA LA MD MN NY NC SC WA WV WI 

Improving the Identification and Selection of Claimants Most in Need of Reemployment Services 

Expediting the Identification of Claimants 

at High Risk of Exhausting UI Benefits X X X Xa

 X X Xa 

Expanding the Pool of WPRS Eligibles X X Xa X 

Improving the Claimant Selection Process X X X Xa X X X X 

Improving Reemployment Services

Improving Orientation and Reemployment 

Workshops X X X X X X 

Strengthening the Assessment Process X X X X 

Enhancing Follow-up Activities X Xa X X Xa X X 

Facilitating Receipt of Self-Access Services X X X 

Increasing Service Capacity X X X 

Improving Coordination Among Programs and Agencies

Strengthening the Profiling/Call-In Link X X 

Strengthening the Link from Service 

Delivery to the UI System X X X 

Improving Data Systems to Enhance 

Service Delivery and Monitoring X X X Xa

 X X 

Improving Coordination Among Agencies 

and Officesb

 X X 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

a

These activities are not part of SIG activities but are included because of their noteworthy features. 

b

Several states established management teams of staff in the central office to coordinate implementation of the SIGs. Although these 

teams may enhance the overall coordination of WPRS activities, we focus only on activities that involved a broader number or range 

of staff. 
4

benefits, expanding the pool of WPRS eligibles, or improving the claimant selection process. 

Some states worked to improve the quality, content, or intensity of reemployment services, such 

as the WPRS orientation workshop or other workshops, the assessment process, follow-up 

activities, or self-access services. Finally, some states worked to improve their coordination 

among agencies, which is particularly important because WPRS systems involve UI, ES, and 

often WIA staff, as well as staff at both central and local office levels.2

Within these broad categories of improvement strategies, the 11 SIG states revised their 

WPRS systems using a wide variety of approaches based on what they saw as their main 

weakness in profiling and service delivery and what they deemed most feasible to implement 

with the resources they had and the time they were allowed (Table I.2). In some instances, states 

chose to use the grant money for activities that were already underway and had long-range 

objectives but required additional resources for further progress. Each state’s experience is 

unique because of its unusual SIG plans, existing UI and reemployment services delivery system, 

and labor market characteristics. Although there are patterns in the ways states have used the 

grant money, these 11 different experiences provide a rich array of designs and approaches to 

ensure that claimants most in need of reemployment services receive them efficiently and 

effectively. 

B. EVALUATION OBJECTIVES 

Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) is conducting a process/implementation 

evaluation of these grants. This evaluation describes the WPRS systems in use in each of the 

 2

In many instances throughout this report, we use the terms “local offices” and “one-stops”

interchangeably, because states continue to make the transition from local offices to one-stops 

and provide many of the same types of services in each environment. 
TABLE I.2 

KEY COMPONENTS OF SIG STATES’ GRANT ACTIVITIES 

Activity Description 

ALASKA

Improve the profiling model This includes developing a new model, implementing a method for yearly updates, including TAA/NAFTA-eligible claimants in the 

profiling selection pool, and recalculating profiling scores weekly for claimants in the selection pool to factor in new information. The state proposed expediting the profiling at initial claim, rather than at first payment, but rejected this idea because of concerns about increases in staff workload and confusion caused by calling in claimants who are ineligible for benefits. 

Increase the accuracy of selection and referrals of WPRS-eligible claimants 

Through training of UI call center staff on criteria for registration coding and programming changes, claimants who are at high risk of long periods of unemployment and who have been miscoded are reclassified to be eligible for WPRS services. 

Clarify responsibilities and procedures for profiling no-shows 

These improvements are designed to help UI and ES staff better manage adjudication workloads by clarifying which staff are responsible for rescheduling claimants who did not show up for a workshop and are responsible for adjudicating these issues. 

Coordinate within and across programs 

Through monthly teleconferences, statewide yearly training workshops, and visits to local offices by the WPRS coordinator, this state has hoped to build relationships among staff, share information, and increase knowledge across program areas. 

Improve tracking and outcomes information 

The state improved tabulations for the 9048 and 9049 reports, modified and created new versions of these reports for state use, and provided feedback to local staff on data entry. 

Increase materials and resources for profiled claimants and workshop facilitators 

The state provided job search workbooks to all participants at the WPRS orientation. Some local offices received computer equipment (laptops and projectors) to help with workshops and software to provide a basic computer skills tutorial. 

CALIFORNIA 

Develop an Internet module to be included in the orientation workshop 

The module helps claimants at high risk of long unemployment spells to develop their skills to use computer-based self-access services 

and to conduct a more effective job search. Topics include (1) basic computer skills and terminology (such as starting the computer; 

using basic keyboard, mouse, and Internet manipulation techniques); (2) registration procedures for the state’s job-listing system; (3) use 

of the Internet for job searching; (4) use of several job-related Web sites; (5) use of keywords to define skill sets for job search and 

resume preparation; and (6) organizational skills (being focused, keeping records, and setting goals) so that they could have an efficient 

Internet job search. Many of the points in the lesson plan, such as broadening the set of skills that claimants recognize they have, are also 

useful for a non-computer-based job search strategy. 

LOUISIANA 

Improve the profiling model This is accomplished by adding new variables and eliminating old ones to improve statistical accuracy in the identification of claimants at 

high risk of benefit exhaustion. The state also changed the score threshold above which claimants are included in the profiling lists. 

Improve training and materials for workshop facilitators 

This is accomplished by redesigning the video for the six-hour orientation workshop, conducting statewide training sessions for the 

facilitators to standardize the delivery of this service, and developing a new/updated facilitators’ guide and participant workbook for use 

in the orientation workshop. The state also developed a CD of the workshop material, for claimants to go through on their own in the 

resource room. 

Increase computer-based resources for profiled claimants 

Louisiana used grant resources to provide additional PC workstations with Internet access to local offices and one-stops. Most offices received two workstations. 

5 
TABLE I.2 (continued)

6 

Increase use of America’s Job Bank The state developed a self-guided CD on how to use America’s Job Bank. The state considered developing a lesson plan for a workshop 

on America’s Job Bank, but decided against it because of concerns about the specialized nature of the workshop. 

Redesign existing and create new data reports 

The new reports to improve local office follow-up and tracking efforts include reports on claimants who received services recently 

without obtaining employment, claimants with job referrals and claimants who did not show up for required WPRS activities, and claimants who recently attended workshops. 

MARYLAND 

Improve the profiling model The state reestimated the model and updated tables that are used to compute profiling scores. The tables contain data on unemployment 

rates and changes in employment by industry at the Workforce Development Area level. 

Develop and implement new job search workshop manual 

The new workshops emphasize experiential learning using group exercises in which the participants discover the concepts themselves 

rather than having them presented by the instructor (as in the old workshop). Like the old workshops, the new ones are 10 hours in length, but the groups are larger (20 to 30 participants instead of 12 to 15) to improve the mix of issues and diversity of the groups. 

Improve the tracking and scheduling system 

By increasing automation in the local office operations, the new PC-based system allows local office staff to look at the weekly list of 

WPRS eligibles, decide whom to call in, print out customized letters, record attendance at the workshop, reschedule no-shows, and send 

an electronic document to UI staff for each claimant who did not attend. 

MINNESOTA 

Conduct profiling after the initial claim 

This allows claimants to receive WPRS services earlier in their claims process. In a process that is parallel to changing the timing of profiling, but is not funded by the SIG, Minnesota has added claimants with short potential durations to the profiling selection pool and 

modified the list of claimant characteristics used to predict those claimants most likely to exhaust their UI benefits. 

Develop a comprehensive assessment tool 

The tool is designed to help local office staff better identify claimants’ needs that may affect their reemployment prospects and to better 

direct them to appropriate services. 

Develop data transfer capabilities between the UI and ES databases 

The state can now transfer UI participation and WPRS requirements to the ES system so the information can be viewed more easily by staff working with the claimants. 

Improve communication between the call centers and the local offices and one-stops 

Adjudicators now receive a standardized set of information from local offices and one-stops when UI eligibility issues arise. 

NEW YORK 

Improve the profiling model Staff developed recommendations for a new profiling model by conducting a survey of state profiling models to examine other states’

WPRS systems and investigating the appropriateness of different model specifications in partnership with a local university professor and 

graduate students. 

Conduct training sessions Local office staff attended training sessions that covered the use of labor market information, career assessment tools, the revised 

profiling model, profile scoring and rescoring, and case management and tracking. 

Distribute career exploration tools These computer-based career exploration tools are designed to help claimants make better career choices by deciding on a career 

direction, understanding whether that career is in demand in the labor market, and determining how to update their skills. 
TABLE I.2 (continued)

7 

Identify data system improvements To link the various data systems involved in WPRS and to better address nonparticipation in WPRS, the state developed procedures to 

place a hold more quickly on the UI payments of claimants who do not show up for WPRS activities. The state also mails to claimants a 

letter that explains why their benefits are on hold and that they need to attend the activity. The state also worked with a consultant to investigate ways to link together all WPRS-related data systems and set up a relational database of all WPRS-related data to facilitate reporting. 

NORTH CAROLINA 

Provide intensive services to workers in the textile, apparel, and tobacco industries 

North Carolina established the Reemployment Services for Textiles, Apparel, and Tobacco (RSTAT) program, which is separate from the WPRS system and focuses intensive, staff-assisted services on workers laid off from these industries. To reemploy these workers as 

quickly as possible, funds were allocated to local offices that were experiencing plant closings to pay for staff for varying lengths of time, depending on the size and duration of the local layoffs. These claimants participated in an orientation session upon filing an initial claim, 

and a job search workshop at a later date. Throughout their UI claim periods, they saw a staff member every two weeks to discuss their job search activities, receive job referrals, and/or receive job development. They might also be referred to training or the resource room 

for further assistance. 

SOUTH CAROLINA 

Improve the profiling model This is accomplished by profiling and referring claimants at the time of the initial claim. State staff considered but decided against 

implementing substate statistical models because there is not enough variation across the state to make substate models worthwhile to run. 

Provide more defined reemployment service objectives 

The state developed a 26-week Profiled Claimant Service Model to strengthen follow-up services to claimants throughout their UI claim 

periods.

Strengthen follow-up services The state added full-time caseworkers in some of the largest offices to provide intensive case management follow-up services to claimants 

with high profiling scores.

Increase front-line WPRS staff training 

To increase uniformity of services across offices, the training covered WPRS program procedures and guidelines, reasons to exempt 

claimants, how to encourage participation, topics to cover in the orientation workshop, and handouts to be provided to participants. 

Develop better tracking systems New reports provide more timely frontline and management feedback by listing claimants who filed for benefits each day, key 

information claimants’ involvement in the UI and ES systems, and claimants who continue to receive UI benefits. 

Implement regular field monitoring and technical assistance 

The full-time field coordinators positions were designed to improve coordination between the central office and local offices by helping local office and one-stop staff to manage their workloads, address program issues, and to monitor local office program procedures. 

WASHINGTON 

Include additional initial claimants in the selection pool 

Local offices want to have several opportunities to enroll claimants in reemployment services. SIG activities include investigations 

identifying claimants that file additional initial claims and whether and how to develop a WPRS scoring process to rank these claimants.

Develop a new assessment tool By assessing job search readiness, a new tool is designed to assist staff in directing claimants to additional workshops. Although the state 

has the capacity to provide this tool on the Internet so that claimants may access it more easily and the data may be captured electronically, local office staff currently hand out the assessment tool form during workshops. 

Integrate data systems The SIG efforts are a continuation of Washington’s long-term plans to develop a “data warehouse” to link together the UI data system, 

wage records, the ES data system, Labor Exchange, and (now also) the WIA data system. These data systems historically have resided on different computer platforms and therefore did not link well together. The data warehouse has the potential to help improve service delivery and monitoring and encourage staff to utilize cross-division data to develop more appropriate program policies. 
TABLE I.2 (continued)

8 

Develop an Internet-based scheduling system 

This would automatically schedule claimants to one-on-one staff time slots and group workshops. Although this was expected to reduce 

staff time spent on scheduling and following up on claimants, the state decided to put this idea on hold because it plans to switch to a onestop operating system that would perform similar activities. 

WEST VIRGINIA 

Improve the profiling model This was accomplished by adding new predictor variables and developing a mechanism to facilitate periodic updates to the model. Increase the number of claimants receiving WPRS services 

Part-time staff worked exclusively on WPRS activities in areas of high unemployment, scheduled and led the weekly workshops, conducted intake and assessment, made follow-up contact via letters or telephone calls with claimants, tried to place the claimants, conducted other case management activities, and handled reports. 

Identify and correct problems in the WPRS reporting processes 

The state identified and corrected problems in the recording and transmission of data used in reports for both central office staff and DOL. 

WISCONSIN 

Improve reemployment services Several local office staff reviewed the menu of reemployment services offered, modified existing services and added new services. Some 

of the newly designed workshops target specific populations, such as older workers. 

Implement follow-up efforts Local office staff in one area of the state reminded claimants after their 13th week of UI claims of available services in the hopes of 

decreasing the exhaustion rate and duration of claims by increasing participation in follow-up services. 

Increase the number of claimants receiving WPRS services 

These efforts intended to correct historical imbalances in the proportions of claimants across the state who receive services by increasing 

the number of profiling staff in areas with the largest proportion of unserved claimants. 

SOURCE: Data collected for the Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. 
9

11 states, documents the changes made with the SIGs, and assesses the degree to which the SIG 

activities were successfully implemented. When appropriate, we also document why states 

chose to deviate from their implementation plans. 

This final report describes findings from data collection activities conducted during late 

2000, 2001, and early 2002. The data collection activities include in-person visits to the 11 SIG 

states and telephone interviews with their staff. One state, Minnesota, was visited twice, the 

other SIG states once. The staff we spoke with included SIG coordinators; UI, ES, WIA, and 

Management Information Systems (MIS) staff at the central office; and management and 

reemployment services staff who conduct WPRS activities in the local offices and one-stops. 

The data collection also includes a review of the grant proposals and relevant documents 

provided to DOL or for states’ own internal uses, as well as an analysis of state-level data on UI 

program activities and reemployment services provided as part of the states’ reporting 

requirements to DOL. 

We supplement our discussion of activities funded by the SIGs with information on some of 

the other innovative approaches states took to WPRS service delivery, even when they have not 

been funded by the SIGs. States are continually making improvements in their UI and one-stop 

systems, and we also make note of these changes when they affect SIG activities or service 

delivery processes. By doing so, we aim to provide a more comprehensive view of the service 

delivery mechanisms of the 11 SIG states, as well as the associated strengths and potential 

pitfalls, so that DOL and other states may benefit from these experiences. 

This final report is an update to, and expansion of, an interim report that described early 

implementation activities of the states, a description of the problems they encountered, and the 

lessons learned. Expansions to the interim report include additional site-specific and cross-site 

lessons based on the full two years of SIG states’ activities and a discussion of how patterns 
10

found across the SIG states illustrate how states may have difficulty achieving WPRS objectives. 

We also examine whether quantitative analysis of changes in service use and UI benefit receipt 

through pre-post grant comparisons provides further information on the effects of the SIG 

efforts. However, limitations in this data analysis caused by the effects of other factors on 

claimant outcomes (like changes in the economy or the broader UI and reemployment service 

system) and issues with the quality of the data affect our ability to identify changes caused by the 

SIG activities. In addition, many of the grant activities, such as improvements in interagency 

coordination, are important but are likely to affect client outcomes only in the long run. We 

therefore view the primary contributions of this evaluation final report to be qualitative in nature, 

with most of the lessons drawn from the process/implementation experiences of the states. 

C. OUTLINE OF THIS REPORT 

The next three chapters discuss the improvements to the profiling model, reemployment 

services, and agency coordination, respectively. Chapter II discusses states’ efforts to improve 

the identification and selection of claimants most in need of reemployment services. Chapter III 

discusses states’ efforts to improve reemployment services throughout the claimants’ UI claims 

periods. Chapter IV discusses state activities to improve the coordination among programs and 

agencies. Finally, Chapter V provides an assessment of the implementation of states’ SIG 

activities, as well as implications about the way WPRS systems nationwide are likely to operate 

and inferences about the implementation of the WIA. 
11

II. CHANGES TO THE IDENTIFICATION AND SELECTION OF CLAIMANTS 

MOST IN NEED OF REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

State-run Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) systems are designed to 

target reemployment services to unemployment insurance (UI) claimants who are expected to 

experience long periods of unemployment. Because reemployment services are costly and 

cannot be provided to every claimant, the WPRS system helps to identify claimants who most 

need them. States typically use a “profiling model” to rank claimants according to their 

statistical likelihood of exhausting benefits. The highest-ranking claimants—those most likely to 

exhaust their UI benefits—are given a higher priority than lower-ranking ones. Indeed, 

claimants with the highest rankings are called in for services and required to participate in them 

as a condition of continued UI claim eligibility. 

Although these systems may allocate scarce resources more efficiently than other 

approaches, Wandner and Messenger (1999) identified several weaknesses in the mechanisms by 

which they select claimants to receive reemployment services. These weaknesses stemmed 

primarily from operational issues rather than from the profiling model per se, and included 

delays in claimants’ participation in reemployment services and low levels of participation. 

Suggestions to improve these mechanisms included that states (1) periodically update their 

models to reflect changes in the factors that lead to exhausting benefits, and (2) increase the 

number of claimants who are referred to WPRS services. 

A number of states have used grant funds to address these types of weaknesses in their 

WPRS systems. The main strategies to improve the mechanisms by which claimants are selected 

for services have been: 
12

• Developing Systems to Identify and Select Claimants for Services at the Time of 

Their Initial Claims. This has the potential to reduce the length of time to service 

receipt, thereby speeding claimants’ return to work. However, these new systems 

may create additional work for State Employment Security Agency (SESA) staff, 

because claimants who are subsequently determined ineligible for benefits might be 

called in. Minnesota gives local offices discretion about whether to call in claimants 

with separation issues or denials. In contrast, Alaska had planned to change to 

profiling at initial claim but decided against it because of concerns that staff burden 

would be increased from serving and investigating the situations of claimants who 

quit or were fired from their jobs. South Carolina opted for initial claim profiling but 

reported encountering some of these problems. 

• Expanding the Group of Claimants Who Are in the WPRS Selection Pools. When 

some states originally designed their profiling systems, they excluded some claimants 

from the profiling selection pool because of the statistical complexity involved in 

calculating scores for them or because of limitations in the ability to access the 

necessary data. Several SIG states have reexamined the appropriateness of these 

decisions and developed mechanisms to include groups that previously had been 

excluded, such as claimants with short potential durations or incomplete data. Doing 

so means that more claimants may be required to participate in services when offices 

have the capacity to serve them. When a one-stop is unable to serve all the claimants 

in its selection pool, increasing the number of claimants in the pool may alter who is 

called in for services but will not increase the number served. 

• Improving the Statistical Precision of Profiling Models. Several states have 

improved their profiling models, or are in the process of doing so, through the 

inclusion of additional variables, reconfiguration of variables already included in the 

model, or respecification of the model. Many model changes may result in a better 

identification of high-risk claimants and a greater likelihood that they will be served. 

Respecifying the model or changing the list of claimant-based characteristics used in 

it has the potential to alter how claimants in a local office are ranked, and therefore 

who is served. However, characteristics that vary only across offices will not affect 

how claimants in each office are ranked. These variables will affect only which 

claimants are called in for services if service delivery resources can be shifted from 

geographic areas of low service need to those of high service need.

We begin this chapter with a stylized overview of how WPRS systems often are designed; 

the description does not represent the system in any specific state. We then discuss each of these 

three types of WPRS system improvements. 
13

A. A STYLIZED MODEL OF WPRS SYSTEMS 

The intention of WPRS is to use statistical techniques and data based on the historical 

experiences of the state’s claimants in order to standardize how new claimants are selected for 

mandatory reemployment services. Through targeting of services to claimants most in need, 

limited resources for services are allocated more efficiently, UI duration is reduced, and 

claimants secure better jobs. Reliance on empirical estimation techniques also reduces the 

subjectivity of the selection process. Within broad rules and guidelines, states have considerable 

flexibility in how to run their WPRS systems, so the discussion in this section is inherently 

general (Figure II.1). 

In most states that operate WPRS systems, data on claimants who have filed for UI benefits 

and been found eligible for a first payment are run through a screening process to determine 

whether the claimants are likely to be good candidates for the receipt of reemployment services. 

Claimants who are not are screened out of the selection pool. Although the criteria for screening 

vary across states, job-attached claimants, claimants who are hired through a union hiring hall, 

and interstate claimants are often removed. 

Typically, claimants who remain in the selection pool are given, on the basis of some of 

their characteristics, a “profiling score” that captures their probability of exhausting UI benefits.1

 

Thus, claimants with higher scores are statistically more likely to exhaust their benefits and 

therefore are expected to benefit more from reemployment services than would

 1

DOL legislation gave states the option to use a “characteristics screen” to identify claimants 

most likely in need of services and to select claimants for services randomly from among the 

group of claimants with certain characteristics. However, for the SIG, DOL required state 

applicants that used characteristics screens to provide an assurance that they would implement a 

statistical model for profiling within 90 days of the grant award. No SIG recipients used a 

characteristics screen prior to the SIG. 
Claimant files a UI initial claim.

Is claimant eligible for benefits?

Has claimant filed a first payment?

Is claimant an interstate claimant, jobattached, or union attached or in some 

other category that is unlikely to 

benefit from reemployment services?

Claimant is assigned a profiling score based 

on employment history, demographic 

characteristics, UI claim characteristics,

and labor market conditions.

Does the state use a threshold score?

Is claimant’s score above the threshold?

Has claimant been in the selection pool for the 

maximum allowed time?

Claimant is selected and scheduled for mandatory WPRS orientation workshop.

Does claimant participate in orientation workshop?

Is claimant ranked high enough relative to other 

claimants in the selection pool to be selected for 

mandatory WPRS services?

FIGURE II.1

STYLIZED WPRS SYSTEM

No further WPRS action.

No further WPRS action.

Claimant is excluded from the 

WPRS selection pool. No further 

WPRS action.

No further WPRS action.

Claimant is removed from the selection 

pool. No further WPRS action.

Yes

No

Claimant is placed in the selection pool.

No

No

Yes

State may require participation in additional 

follow-up reemployment services.

State determines whether claimant 

is to be adjudicated, rescheduled, 

or exempted.

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Yes No

Source: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants.

Note: This stylized WPRS system flowchart is intended to provide an overview of how many states have designed their WPRS systems

and does not represent the system in any specific state.

Yes

14
15

claimants with lower scores. 2 States often use the claimant’s education, job tenure, occupation, 

industry, potential claim duration, weekly benefit amount (WBA) and/or UI wage replacement 

rate, and county unemployment rate for predicting the likelihood of a claimant’s exhausting UI 

benefits. However, states are free to exclude some of these characteristics or include others to 

improve the predictive ability of their statistical model. States are not allowed to use certain 

personal data (such as age, race/ethnicity, sex, and citizenship status) when calculating the 

profiling score, because it is not legal to mandate participation in services on the basis of these 

characteristics. 

A high-scoring subgroup of claimants in the selection pool must not only meet the regular 

UI program rules on work search efforts, but also participate in reemployment services, such as 

an orientation workshop that introduces them to services available at the local office. Because 

the WPRS system is designed to allocate limited resources to claimants that need them most, 

many states instruct local offices to serve as many claimants as they can handle; claimants with 

the highest scores are given the highest priority for WPRS-mandated participation. Other states 

use a predetermined threshold score, interpreted as the cutoff below which claimants are less in 

need of mandated state assistance. Claimants with the highest scores are still required to attend 

services, but claimants with scores below the threshold are not. By using a threshold score, a 

state allows reemployment services staff to work more intensively with the highest-risk group. 

States have taken a variety of approaches in the selection of claimants once scores are 

assigned. Many states allow each local office or one-stop to decide how many reemployment 

 2

Needels et al. 2001 found that claimants who were required to go to Job Service were more 

likely than claimants who were not required to go to have high-risk characteristics, such as being 

a dislocated worker or lacking a recall date. However, even under best-case research scenarios, 

the parametric specifications used for WPRS models do not explain a large proportion of the 

difference in exhaustion rates between groups of claimants. 
16

service workshops it will conduct per week or month, as well as how many claimants it will call 

in for an orientation workshop. In some states, each local office selects participants from a list of 

claimants in its geographic area who were recently given scores. In other states, claimants may 

be selected at a central location, or a local office may be allowed to choose whether it or the state 

will do the selection. Although part of the intent of WPRS systems is to use empirical estimation 

techniques to identify and select claimants most likely to exhaust benefits, the state agency may 

give local offices some flexibility to skip claimants with high scores and select claimants with 

lower ones. Common reasons for deciding to skip some high-scoring claimants reflect additional 

information about the particulars of reemployment services for a specific claimant, such as 

whether the claimant has been or will be participating in similar services and whether the 

claimant lives closer to a workshop to be held in a different location at a later date. 

Regardless of the mechanism by which claimants are selected, states usually limit the length 

of time that claimants are on the profiling list and eligible for selection to participate in 

mandatory services. These time limits, usually one and a half to six weeks, help ensure that only 

claimants who are in the early part of their claims are selected. This is important, as states can 

then target their reemployment services to claimants for whom they have the best chance of 

reducing the time on UI benefits and saving expenditures from the UI trust fund. A claimant on 

the profiling list who is not selected for mandatory participation during this time is removed 

from the list and effectively exempted from these participation requirements. 

Letters notifying the claimants of their selection for mandatory services are sent from either 

the local office or a central location. Although the style and content of these letters vary 

considerably, they typically inform the claimants that (1) they have been selected to participate 

in an orientation workshop that will provide them with information on the services available to 
17

them, (2) their participation is mandatory, and (3) failure to participate or provide just cause for 

nonparticipation may affect their eligibility for UI benefits. 

Most states require, at a minimum, that WPRS-mandated claimants participate in an 

orientation workshop on the reemployment services available at the one-stop center.3 Topics 

usually covered in the orientation workshop include the reasons claimants are required to 

participate in reemployment services, the services available at the one-stop center or in the 

community, and basic job search skills (such as networking for job leads, resume writing, and 

interviewing). 

For a variety of reasons, claimants who have been mandated to attend an orientation 

workshop do not always show up, and how states handle these no-shows varies according to the 

reason for nonparticipation. States often exempt a claimant who has recently participated in 

similar services, or reschedule a claimant who has a job interview at the same time as the 

workshop. Claimants who fail to comply for a reason, such as a child care or transportation 

problem, that suggests they are not able to or available for work are often referred to 

adjudication. Some eligible claimants return to work before their scheduled workshop. Because 

these claimants stop collecting benefits, they may be subject to the participation requirement 

only if they return to collect additional benefits during the same benefit year. 

Often, however, SESA staff may not know why a claimant has failed to show up for a 

required workshop. In such cases, some states immediately transmit information to UI program 

staff so that adjudication can begin to determine the claimant’s eligibility for benefits. Other 

states automatically reschedule a claimant for a second workshop and possibly even a third if a 

 3

States vary considerably in the depth of services provided to managed claimants. Providing 

minimal services only is a departure from service strategies that have been found to be effective 

in reducing unemployment (U.S. Department of Labor 1999a). 
18

claimant fails to show up for the second. These states are therefore giving claimants second and 

third chances to participate before the adjudication process is initiated. 

Finally, WPRS-mandated claimants may be encouraged or required to participate in 

additional services designed to assist them in their search for employment, including other 

workshops or meetings with reemployment services staff. States that require follow-up services 

often have procedures, similar to those for the orientation workshop, designed to ensure that 

claimants meet the requirements in a timely way. 

B. SPEEDING THE IDENTIFICATION OF CLAIMANTS AT A HIGH RISK OF 

EXHAUSTING UI BENEFITS 

Because a main goal of WPRS is to facilitate receipt of reemployment services by claimants 

who were identified early in the unemployment process as likely to exhaust their benefits, a key 

component of service provision is its timeliness. Original DOL guidelines instructed states to 

conduct profiling at the time claimants are certified for their first payments. By profiling at this 

time, the group of profiled claimants is restricted to claimants who are eligible for benefits and 

who are early in their UI claim period, which allows receipt of reemployment services to yield a 

reduction in the length of benefit receipt. 

DOL and some states that received SIGs were concerned that waiting until a claimant files 

for a first payment unnecessarily delays the receipt of reemployment services. In states with 

waiting weeks, for example, a claimant who is required to participate in profiling services may 

not receive the first service until about five weeks after filing the initial claim. Claimants certify 

for the first payment during the third week of the claim. If a payment is made then, they may 

become part of the profiling pool and can be selected during the third week of the claim. An 

additional two weeks may elapse between the mailing of the invitation letter and the time of the 
19

workshop. Thus, some states have considered changing the timing of profiling from “at first 

payment” to “at initial claim,” which could expedite claimant services. 

In this section, we discuss the experiences to date of states that used the SIG to change the 

timing of when claimants are identified as needing reemployment services (Table II.1). We first 

discuss potential advantages and disadvantages to increasing the speed at which claimants are 

profiled, and how three states—Alaska, South Carolina, and Minnesota—have weighed them. 

We also briefly discuss the current status of other states that have changed or are in the process 

of changing the timing of profiling. Finally, we present how one state—North Carolina—has 

developed an alternative way to identify and serve claimants at high risk of exhausting their 

benefits. 

1. Potential Advantages and Disadvantages to Profiling at Initial Claim 

The goal of profiling at initial claim rather than at first payment is to serve claimants earlier 

in the unemployment process. A state that calculates a profiling score shortly after claimants are 

determined monetarily eligible for their claim, rather than at the time of first payment, may be 

able to reduce the time until the receipt of services by about two weeks. By mandating 

participation in services earlier, states may shorten UI benefit receipt, diminish the hardship 

claimants face while unemployed, and reduce UI trust fund expenditures. 

However, some state staff reported potential drawbacks to profiling at initial claim. By 

profiling after monetary eligibility is determined, claimants who are subsequently determined 

ineligible for benefits because of nonmonetary issues (such as their having been fired from their 

jobs because of misconduct) are now included in the selection pool. These claimants may be 

confused about their eligibility for UI benefits, which could increase the workload for local 

office staff who may have to respond to additional telephone calls and other inquiries. In 

addition, for a given number of claimants called in for the orientation workshops, some
20 

TABLE II.1 

TIMING OF SIG RECIPIENT STATES’ PROFILING 

 

Pre-SIG Timing 

of Profiling 

Original Plans 

Included 

Changing 

Timing? Current Status 

Alaska First payment Yes Decided against profiling at initial 

claim 

California First payment No n.a. 

Louisiana First payment No n.a. 

Maryland First payment Nob n.a. 

Minnesota First payment Yes Implemented in April 2001 

North Carolina First payment Yesc Implemented in February 2000 

New York First paymenta

 No n.a. 

South Carolina First payment Yes Implemented in November 1999d 

Washington Initial claim No n.a. 

Wisconsin First payment No n.a. 

West Virginia First payment No n.a. 

SOURCE: Data collected as part of the Evaluation of Worker Profiling and Reemployment 

Services and the Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

n.a. = not applicable. 

a

New York calculates a preliminary profiling score after the initial claim filing and a revised 

score after the first payment. This two-step process is to accommodate changes in the profiling 

score so that claimants may participate in the state’s Self-Employment Assistance Program, 

which requires scores of 0.7 or higher. 

b

Maryland has developed a process to call in claimants after their initial claim for a one- to twohour voluntary orientation workshop. This workshop is different from the WPRS-mandated 10-

hour job search workshop. 

c

North Carolina’s SIG plans included the development of a mechanism, independent of the 

WPRS system, to speed the delivery of reemployment services to claimants at high risk of 

exhaustion. Claimants are selected for participation in this program on the basis of employment 

in the tobacco, apparel, or textile industries. 

d

South Carolina made modifications in 2000 and 2001 to the way it sorted claimants on the lists 

that local offices receive to select WPRS-mandated participants. 
21

workshop attendees will be eligible for benefits and some will not.4 Profiling at initial claim 

therefore may decrease the number of eligible claimants who are required to participate in 

reemployment services, because ineligible claimants are also invited to a workshop. 

Finally, some state staff thought that profiling at initial claim would complicate compliance 

with federal reporting requirements. DOL requires states to report the numbers of claimants who 

are profiled, who are required to participate in WPRS services, and who actually participate. 

When a state has switched profiling from at first payment to at initial claim, state staff have 

thought that they need to maintain a dual reporting system—one for internal purposes and one 

for DOL. However, DOL does not require profiling activities at first payment or the reporting of 

this information as if it were conducted then. State-level staff typically are unaware that DOL 

recently increased flexibility in its recommended procedures so that states can report information 

on profiling at either initial claim or first payment. DOL staff are currently considering updating 

their manual on profiling procedures to reflect this and other changes in policy. 

a. Concerns About Claimants in Denial Periods—Alaska’s Experience 

As part of Alaska’s SIG plans, the state proposed to change the timing of profiling from first 

payment to initial claim. During the grant period, however, staff reconsidered and decided 

against it. Their main reasons were their desire to avoid calling in claimants who might receive a 

six-week denial period, and a lack of resources to serve the additional demand for assistance. 

 4

DOL encourages states to profile claimants in a timely way so that they may receive 

reemployment services as quickly as possible. Indeed, the WPRS Policy Workgroup 

recommended that states profile all claimants who file a new initial claim so that the widest 

possible group of dislocated workers can be served (U.S. Department of Labor 1999a). The 

Workgroup also recommended that the change be coupled with an increase in funding for 

reemployment services. If funding were not increased, the proposed change would lead to a 

decrease in the number of UI recipients who could be served, because non-UI recipients would 

be more likely to be served. 
22

About half of Alaska’s claimants quit or are fired from their jobs; these claimants can collect UI 

benefits, but only after a six-week denial period. If the call-in is after the initial claim, it would 

be during the denial periods of these claimants, and they are unlikely to participate in services 

without the threat of having their benefits halted. The state also lacks the resources to cover the 

additional staff time required to serve more claimants in its larger offices and, more important, to 

follow up with claimants who do not participate, especially since these numbers would be 

expected to rise greatly if profiling occurred earlier. Thus, although Alaska staff recognized the 

value in trying to serve claimants earlier in the unemployment process, they deemed it infeasible 

to do so at this time. They may revisit the issue in the future. 

b. Ordering Claimants by Their Job Separation Reason—South Carolina’s Experience 

Early in the grant period (in November 1999), South Carolina started providing services to 

claimants earlier in their unemployment by profiling them after their initial claim. When the 

state changed the timing of the model from profiling at first payment to profiling at initial claim, 

claimants were able to participate in the orientation workshops around the third week after the 

initial claims, rather than the fifth or sixth week.5 Local offices received lists of up to 50 initial 

claims filers who were monetarily eligible and had scores of at least 40 percent. Originally, 

these lists were sorted so that claimants with the highest profiling scores were at the top. 

Shortly after this change, however, South Carolina’s local offices developed the types of 

problems Alaska’s SIG staff had envisioned. Because local offices selected claimants from the 

list in descending order and could not “skip over” claimants with potential eligibility issues, an 

 5

The state also developed a mechanism to maintain reports on profiling both at first payment 

(for DOL) and at initial claim (for internal purposes) by identifying claimants who were profiling 

at initial claim and who subsequently received a first payment. As discussed earlier, however, 

current DOL policy is that states may report data either at first payment or at initial claim. 
23

office might select a large number of claimants whose job separation was due to a voluntary quit 

or a discharge. Although about one-third of claimants who quit or were discharged from their 

jobs receive first payments, these claimants were less likely than those who were laid off to be 

eligible for UI benefits and to show up for the orientation session. Because of the change in who 

was being selected for the workshop, staff started spending more time responding to telephone 

calls from discontented or confused claimants. 

As a result, South Carolina modified its profiling system in February 2000 to sort claimants 

first by their reason for job separation, and then by profiling score, in descending order. 

Claimants were assigned to one of four categories: (1) lack of work, (2) quit, (3) discharge, and 

(4) other, and listed in that order. Local offices were able to select from any of these categories 

as long as they proceeded down the list in each. As a practical matter, sorting the lack-of-work 

claimants to be called in before other claimants allowed the staff to manage their workloads 

better by calling in fewer claimants per workshop, reducing variation in the number of claimants 

who would come in when instructed to do so, and diminishing claimants’ confusion about their 

UI eligibility. 

Around this time, South Carolina also revised the invitation letter sent to claimants selected 

to participate in an orientation workshop to give it a more positive tone and to clarify the purpose 

of the early selection and call-in for services. Because some claimants who are selected will not 

become eligible for UI benefits, the letter now explains that (1) the claimant may participate in 

services even if ineligible for UI benefits; and (2) the claimant will be required to participate if 

eligible for benefits, unless specifically exempted. This change, like the one to give priority to 

lack-of-work claimants, also reduced claimants’ confusion about their eligibility for UI benefits. 

Despite staff’s having liked the strategy of sorting claimants by job separation reasons prior 

to selecting them for WPRS services, however, the state re-sorted its lists in early 2001 so that all 
24

claimants were ranked exclusively by their profiling score. This reversal in procedures was after 

guidance from DOL that ranking claimants by their job separation reasons may lead to the 

appearance of unfair discrimination in the way that claimants are treated. Since then, South 

Carolina staff have noticed an increase in the time required for tasks such as following up on 

claimants who did not show up for the orientation workshop and handling telephone calls by 

claimants confused about their eligibility. 

c. Giving Local Offices Flexibility in Handling Claimants with Separation Issues or 

Denials—Minnesota’s Experience 

In April 2001, Minnesota updated its model so that profiling occurs after monetary 

eligibility is determined.6 Before making this change, central office staff needed to consider how 

to handle claimants who have more complicated claims or who may be denied benefits. The 

state decided that claimants with pending monetary determinations should be excluded from the 

lists.7 Two to 3 percent of claimants are put in a “wrap file” for up to 21 days. If they become 

monetarily eligible during this time, they are added to the profiling list. Investigation showed 

that about three-quarters of claims that have pending wage information become monetarily 

eligible within this 21-day period. Claimants whose monetary eligibility issues are not resolved 

during that time are dropped from the wrap file and are not put on the profiling list. 

 6

Two other changes to the model were made at the same time: (1) claimants with potential 

durations of less than 26 weeks were included, and (2) the variables and coefficients in the model 

were updated. We discuss these changes in subsequent sections. 

7

It is possible that a claimant could be quickly determined to be monetarily eligible and 

hence be put on the profiling list. However, changes over time in the calculation of the 

claimant’s base period earnings may affect his or her WBA, which could in turn affect the 

profiling score. To keep the profiling process simpler, Minnesota decided against recalculating 

the profiling score in these instances. 
25

In contrast, the state includes on the lists the claimants with holds on their claims because of 

nonmonetary separation issues or denials. A profiling score is calculated for these claimants, but 

the screen displays that the claimant has a pending eligibility issue or has been denied benefits. 

The central office gives discretion to the local offices in how to handle such claimants. Offices 

with the capacity to serve them tend to invite them to orientation workshops. However, the 

larger offices, whose lists usually contain more claimants than they can serve, do not call them in 

but instead skip past them to select others. Thus, each local office can decide whether to call in 

claimants whose eligibility status is in question. In doing so, local office staff can tailor their 

procedures based on the need for services and their evaluation of the potential advantages and 

disadvantages of providing services to these types of claimants. 

By changing profiling from at first payment to at initial claim, Minnesota appears to have 

been able to reduce claimants’ time to service receipt. Comparisons between the first quarter of 

2001 and the June-through-August-2001 period show a reduction in the average time from the 

initial claim to service referral from about 24 days to about 7 days.8

 However, this advantage 

may not materialize for all of Minnesota’s offices. When profiling occurred at the first payment, 

some of the smaller offices in rural areas invited claimants to workshops before their first 

payment. Thus, the pre-SIG time between when initial claims were filed and when claimants 

were invited to a workshop may have been shorter for these offices than for the larger ones. 

 8

Other factors, such as seasonal and economy-wide influences, may influence the 

comparability of these time periods. The interval between when a profiling referral to services is 

made and when services are received also may have changed over time. Nevertheless, this 17-

day reduction in the average time from initial claim to service referral seems large enough that it 

is unlikely to have been caused exclusively by these factors or by statistical noise. 
26

2. The Current Status of Changing the Timing of Call-Ins for Services—The 

Experiences of Other States 

Three other SIG states have implemented or are developing procedures to call in claimants 

after initial claim. Washington implemented initial claim profiling prior to the SIG.9 Despite 

initial problems in the transition caused by incomplete or inaccurate claims data, Washington 

smoothed out its processes and is able to serve claimants about two weeks earlier in their claim 

spells than it could with profiling at first payment. Nevertheless, central office staff, noting the 

trade-offs that some other states face, are reconsidering whether to profile at first payment or 

initial claim.10 When the economy is weaker, profiling is an especially important mechanism for 

targeting scarce reemployment service resources to claimants who need assistance most. By 

profiling at initial claim, however, the state increases the number of claimants who may be 

identified as in need of services or on local offices’ workloads, and these offices may serve some 

claimants for whom there is little possibility of reducing UI benefit collections.11 According to 

state staff, this occurs especially when a large employer gives Worker Adjustment and 

Retraining Notification (WARN) notices to more workers than it actually lays off, and these 

workers meanwhile file for benefits in anticipation of the layoff. 

 9

Washington’s change in the timing of profiling occurred in 1999, about when the state 

started using call centers for claimants to file initial claims by telephone. Although profiling at 

initial claim leads to an increased number of claimants on profiling lists, state staff attributed 

most of their difficulties managing their workloads during this transitional period to the 

inadequate staffing in the call centers and the effects of an unusually weak economy. 

10In contrast to South Carolina’s experience, the state did not find that claimants were 

confused about whether or not they were eligible for benefits, even though some staff had been 

concerned about this prior to the switch. 

11By examining two monthly cohorts of claimants, Washington staff concluded that about 10 

to 15 percent of claimants who show up for a workshop do not get a benefit check. 
27

Both Maryland and New York also developed the capacity to call in claimants right after the 

initial claim, although they do this for almost all claimants, not just those selected by profiling 

score. In Maryland, all claimants are called in for a voluntary, one-to two-hour orientation about 

the available services and resources. The new orientation workshop is more general and less 

intensive than the 10-hour job search workshop for Maryland’s WPRS-mandated claimants. As 

with other states that call in claimants for WPRS services after the initial claim, the goal is to get 

claimants into the Employment Service (ES) or one-stop offices as early as possible rather than 

waiting for the first payment. (Because notices of WPRS requirements must be sent out at least 

10 days before participation can be required, claimants typically do not show up for WPRS 

workshops until about the fifth or sixth week of the claim.) Maryland’s lists of initial claims 

filers do not currently identify claimants, such as job-attached or interstate claimants, who would 

be screened out in profiling. Instead, the offices invite everyone in, but because the invitation is 

voluntary, it is likely that few of these claimants attend. Maryland eventually may restrict the list 

of initial claims call-ins to those likely to be in the profiling selection pool, but the state is 

awaiting further development of a broader ES/WIA tracking system. 

New York has also developed the capacity to profile at initial claim, although this work was 

not funded by the SIG. This is to encourage claimants to participate in reemployment services 

after the state started using call centers to take UI initial claims. Like Maryland, New York calls 

in to a UI-mandated orientation workshop that explains UI requirements and describes ES 

resources all claimants who are monetarily eligible, are not union-attached or interstate filers, 

and do not have return-to-work dates. In addition, New York calculates a preliminary profiling 

score after the initial claim and a revised score after the first payment. This two-step process was 

designed to accommodate demands for New York’s Self-Employment Assistance Program 

(SEAP), which allows claimants to receive UI benefits while starting their own businesses. To 
28

qualify for SEAP, claimants must be identified as likely to exhaust benefits and have a profiling 

score of at least 0.7. Claimants who are interested in starting their own businesses often request 

changes in their profiling scores, because factors used to calculate the score (such as occupation, 

the indicator for whether or not a claimant was part of a mass layoff, or the industry of the last 

employer) may be incorrectly entered.12 Although local office staff are instructed not to 

schedule claimants for WPRS workshops until after their scores are finalized, staff have the 

opportunity to direct claimants to profiling services when they are in the local offices for the 

initial UI-mandated orientation workshop. 

3. Identifying and Serving Claimants from Targeted Industries—North Carolina’s 

Experience 

The SIG in North Carolina was used to set up a special temporary program that was separate 

from WPRS and that provided reemployment services to workers laid off from the textile, 

apparel, and tobacco industries—Reemployment Services for Textiles, Apparel, and Tobacco 

(RSTAT). These industries were identified as having the largest number of mass layoffs and 

plant closings in the past five years in the state. The goal of the program was to focus intensive, 

staff-assisted services on this target group shortly after their initial claims were filed. The state 

continued to run the WPRS model and send out letters instructing claimants to report to a local 

office, but claimants who already were in the RSTAT program and who were selected for WPRS 

were counted as meeting WPRS requirements. 

Although RSTAT services were similar to what has been provided as part of the WPRS 

program, RSTAT had several distinct elements. First, funds were allocated to local offices 

experiencing plant closings in one or more of these industries in their communities. The funds 

 12Local staff must receive permission from a state official to make changes in profiling data 

and, ultimately, the profiling scores. 
29

paid for staff for varying lengths of time depending on the size and duration of the local layoffs. 

Either local offices asked the central office for assistance or central office staff identified those 

needing assistance through reviews of the WARN notices. Second, claimants from the targeted 

firms were identified and enrolled in the program at the time of the initial claim. 

To learn about the program, RSTAT claimants were sent to a brief orientation session, often 

as part of the group UI claims application and benefit rights interview.13 Such sessions were run 

weekly or more frequently, as needed. Because RSTAT claimants were identified at the time of 

initial claim and in some instances attended an orientation at the same time, they were introduced 

to reemployment services earlier than they would have been otherwise. 

While North Carolina used its SIG funds to set up and run RSTAT as a temporary program 

targeting specific industries, they adapted the RSTAT service model to develop a new, ongoing 

program called Reemployment Initiative (REI), aimed at a broader set of laid-off workers. This 

statewide program targets new claimants who are permanently separated, who have no 

nonmonetary issues, and whose benefits are paid fully by North Carolina employer taxes. 

Eligible claimants—about 20 percent of all of North Carolina’s claimants—also are identified 

and start receiving services after their initial claims. 

C. EXPANDING THE POOL OF WPRS ELIGIBLES 

States often exclude certain claimants from the profiling selection pools because of policy 

considerations or insufficient data to assign claimants a profiling score. Excluding some 

claimants—such as those with recall dates to their former employment or those who are hired 

through union halls—is appropriate, because these claimants are unlikely to benefit much from 

 

13After orientation but at another time, RSTAT claimants attended a job search workshop. 

These workshops, which could be voluntary or mandatory, lasted from two to four hours. 
30

reemployment services. Claimants with low profiling scores are also expected to benefit less 

than those with higher scores. However, other types of claimants may be excluded for reasons 

less directly related to their perceived need for services. One state historically has excluded 

claimants with short potential durations, because of (1) the statistical complexity associated with 

estimating the likelihood that these claimants will exhaust their benefits, and (2) SESA priorities 

to serve claimants for whom there is the most potential to reduce UI durations. By excluding 

some claimants from the selection pools, state decision makers implicitly make trade-offs in 

serving some claimants rather than others. In other cases, claimants may be excluded from the 

selection pool because information to calculate a profiling score is unavailable. Because these 

claimants cannot be ranked relative to other claimants, they may not receive services. Although 

claimants may volunteer to receive services, the excluded groups are less likely than WPRSmandated claimants to receive services, because their participation is not mandated. 

Relaxing the criteria by which claimants are excluded from the selection pool and improving 

the quality of data used to calculate scores may have several effects. On the one hand, more 

claimants could be selected for mandatory WPRS services during times when a one-stop’s ability 

to serve claimants is greater than the number of claimants on its restricted lists. On the other 

hand, the profiling model may become more computationally complex. The long-term 

consequences of this in the administration of the WPRS system depends on how transparent this 

added complexity is to the SESA staff who use the system on a daily basis. 

Several of the SIG states—Alaska, Louisiana, Minnesota, Washington, and West Virginia—

recently have reexamined ways to increase the number of claimants in the selection pool. In this 

section, we highlight the experiences of these states. 
31

1. Including Short-Duration Claimants—Minnesota’s Experience 

Minnesota originally restricted the WPRS selection pool to non-job-attached first payment 

recipients with 26 weeks of potential duration.14 Through Minnesota’s profiling model, 

claimants with potential durations shorter than 26 weeks would have received higher profiling 

scores (than claimants with 26 weeks of potential duration) because of their greater likelihood of 

exhausting benefits. Although these claimants may need reemployment services just as much as 

claimants with longer potential durations, the state is less able to reduce UI durations, and save 

trust fund dollars, by serving them. Because only about two-thirds of Minnesota’s non-jobattached claims are eligible for 26 weeks of benefits, however, a substantial portion of non-jobattached claimants were excluded from the selection pool and effectively exempted from 

profiling requirements. 

In an effort parallel to (but not officially part of) Minnesota’s grant activities, the state has 

created separate models for claimants with potential duration equal to 26 weeks, 23 to 25 weeks, 

19 to 22 weeks, and 11 to 18 weeks. (The recent proportions of unattached claimants in these 

four groups are 66, 10, 10, and 14 percent, respectively.) The models have different weights for 

the claimant characteristics. Within each category, claimants are ranked from highest profiling 

score to lowest. Those with full potential durations are highest on the list, followed by those 

with long, medium, and short potential durations. Each group has a different threshold, above 

which claimants are mandatory for profiling and below which they are voluntary.15

 14Minnesota counts waiting weeks and fraud/overpayment reductions as first payments for 

profiling purposes. 

15The state is re-sorting the lists so that all claimants who are above their model-specific 

threshold will be higher on the list than claimants who are below it. This re-sorting of the list 

will make it easier for local office and one-stop staff to identify and select claimants who are 
32

Whether and how the inclusion of claimants with fewer than 26 weeks of potential duration 

influences who receives services depends on state policy and the number of claimants on the 

lists. Minnesota’s policy is for local offices and one-stops to call in all claimants on their 

profiling lists. Especially in offices that have the capacity to serve more claimants or that can 

develop this capacity, this policy means that claimants who would not have received profiling 

services prior to the SIG—the claimants with fewer than 26 weeks of potential benefits—now 

may receive services. 

However, despite the policy, some local offices may be unable to serve all claimants. 

Because orientation leaders generally work down the list when selecting claimants to invite, 

claimants with 26 weeks of potential benefits are more likely to be served than shorter-duration 

claimants when capacity is constrained. Even though local offices may not be able to invite all 

claimants, many offices are able to invite to orientation workshops at least some of the claimants 

whose participation is voluntary.16 These workshops often are tailored slightly to these 

claimants, who may be at less risk of benefit exhaustion. 

 

(continued) 

mandated for profiling services, because all claimants whose participation is voluntary will be 

below those whose participation is required. 

16Some local office staff have been concerned about workload demands because the 

profiling lists are much longer than they used to be. The lengthening of the lists stems from the 

inclusion of claimants with fewer than 26 weeks of potential duration, the switch of profiling 

from at first payment to at initial claim, and the weakening of the economy around the time of 

the model changes. In response, the central office is considering increasing the thresholds that 

determine whether or not claimants are required to participate in services. Although doing so 

will not shorten the lists (because all claimants will still be on them), raising the thresholds may 

reduce some pressure caused by local office staff trying to serve all the mandated claimants. 
33

2. Including Additional Claimants in the Selection Pool—Washington’s Approach 

Washington used a portion of its SIG funding to explore the usefulness of including in the 

WPRS system those claimants who are filing an additional claim.17 As part of a move toward 

performance-based accountability, Washington has begun holding regional and local office 

managers accountable for the percentage of benefits claimants use. Claimants who are not 

selected for mandatory services after five weeks in the selection pool are exempted from WPRS 

participation and are not called in for services at a later date. Thus, local offices typically have 

only one opportunity to enroll claimants in mandatory reemployment services. If the local 

offices are to be held responsible for reducing benefit receipt, however, they would like several 

opportunities to enroll claimants in these services or the ability to enroll claimants who were 

screened out prior to selection. 

Early in the grant period, the state contracted with a researcher at Western Washington 

University to analyze the characteristics of claimants who have multiple spells of benefit receipt 

within a benefit year and the nature of their claims (Teachman 2000). Focusing on claimants 

from the 1998 benefit year, the researcher found that additional claimants are disproportionately 

from the agricultural, forestry, fishing, and construction industries. In addition, the likelihood of 

exhausting benefits during a spell decreases as the number of spells increases. 

Several complicated issues would have to be addressed before additional claimants are 

included in the WPRS or a similar system. Mechanisms to screen additional claims out of the 

process and to calculate scores so that the claimants can be ranked in need of services would 

have to be developed. The central or local offices also might want to modify existing services or 

 17Additional claimants are those who file claims during an existing benefit year to 

reestablish benefit receipt after an interruption in weekly benefit collection due to employment. 

During some periods, additional claimants are more than 50 percent of the initial claimants. 
34

design new ones to meet the unique needs of this group of claimants, and staff would need to 

determine priorities for serving new initial and additional claimants. In addition, mechanisms to 

report and monitor profiling activities conducted by additional claimants might need to be 

tracked separately from those activities conducted by initial claimants.18

Several factors in the latter part of the grant period led Washington to direct its efforts away 

from including additional claimants into the WPRS system. First, staff were concerned about the 

capacity of offices to serve these claimants, because initial and continued claims increased 

dramatically as the economy weakened. Second, the capacity of some offices to serve more 

claimants may become constrained by the move to one-stops. Because different programs 

compete for space in one-stops, there is less pressure on the central office staff to include more 

groups on the profiling lists. Third, offices are now given lists of all claimants, so offices that 

have many additional claimants can solicit claimants to participate voluntarily in reemployment 

services. This last factor may help local office staff to decrease the amount of benefits that these 

claimants receive, without the state’s having to develop or modify a system to serve them. 

3. Including TAA/NAFTA-TAA Eligible Claimants in the Selection Pool—Alaska’s 

Change 

Alaska also used the SIG to include in the WPRS selection pool TAA/NAFTA-TAAeligible claimants, who had previously been excluded. Through an agreement between the 

WPRS and TAA programs, in conjunction with the UI program, these claimants are now in the 

pool. This change was easy to implement by changing how the system screens claimants out of 

WPRS prior to their receiving a score and by apprising staff of the new procedures. If selected, 

they are directed to the benefits available to them through TAA/NAFTA-TAA. If they already 

 18This barrier might not be difficult to overcome, however, because Washington developed a 

process to report and monitor initial claimants separately from first payment recipients when it 
35

are receiving TAA/NAFTA-TAA services, they are excused from WPRS requirements. By 

including these claimants in the WPRS system, the state hopes that more eligible participants 

will receive TAA/NAFTA-TAA services. 

4. Using Other Methods to Increase the Number of Claimants in the Selection Pool—

Experiences of Alaska, Louisiana, and West Virginia 

In addition to expanding the groups of claimants who are initially included in the selection 

pool, states may use several approaches to enlarge their pools so that more claimants can be 

served. One approach for states that use thresholds for the scores is to vary the thresholds over 

time or across offices. If a local office has the capacity to serve more claimants, lowering a 

threshold will increase the number of claimants served. If the office does not have additional 

capacity, lowering the threshold will not change anything. (States that do not use thresholds are 

implicitly setting a threshold to zero, so lowering this implicit threshold is not an option.) As 

part of its SIG efforts to improve its profiling model, Louisiana changed its threshold from 0.5 to 

0.35, so that offices that have the capacity to serve more claimants can do so. West Virginia 

completely eliminated its threshold, previously 0.5, when it implemented its SIG-funded model 

changes in August 2001. 

Another way to increase the number of claimants in the selection pool is to correct erroneous 

or missing scores. Prior to the SIG, Alaska’s claimants with incomplete information for 

calculating scores received information about services in case they wanted to volunteer (as is the 

case with other claimants), but they could not be required to participate, because a profiling score 

could not be calculated. As part of this state’s SIG-funded changes to its profiling system, it 

modified its computer system so that scores are updated every week during the six weeks after 

 

(continued) 

switched the timing of its profiling model. 
36

the first payments, while claimants are in the selection pool. This allows claimants with 

miscoded or missing information (and thereby incorrect or missing scores) to reenter the 

selection pool. Rather than calculating the score only once, the state now recalculates scores on 

a weekly basis, so a claimant’s score potentially can change several times. If claimants either 

were missing scores or had low scores in previous weeks, they can now be selected in 

subsequent weeks. 

A third approach to increasing the number of claimants in the selection pool is to allow 

claimants to remain in it longer, so that claimants who have not yet been selected and who 

otherwise would be removed from the pool now have the opportunity to be chosen. None of the 

SIG states, as part of their grant activities, changed the length of time claimants are in the 

selection pool, but doing so might increase the number of claimants served if a local office has 

significant weekly variation in the number of claimants on their profiling lists. 

D. IMPROVING THE CLAIMANT SELECTION PROCESS 

When states use a statistical model for the WPRS system, a claimant’s profiling score is 

simply a weighted sum of prespecified factors times numerical representations of the claimant’s 

characteristics. The profiling score often reflects information on the claimant’s human capital 

(such as education level), work history (such as work experience, and industry and occupation at 

the previous job), UI claim characteristics (such as the WBA or ratio of WBA to earnings at the 

prior job, and the potential duration), and local labor market (such as the local unemployment 

rate and urbanicity of the area). States may choose to exclude some of these characteristics or 

include others. The factors are coefficients estimated from one or more statistical models of the 

likelihood that a claimant will exhaust UI benefits, regressed on claimant characteristics from 

historical data (such as the set of claimants who filed for or received benefits during a recent 
37

several-year period in the state). Ideally, claimants’ scores vary widely, so that clear distinctions 

can be made between claimants who are likely and those who are unlikely to exhaust benefits. 

Changes over time in a state’s economic conditions or in the demographic composition and 

labor market experiences of its claimants may create outdated coefficients. Because the relative 

importance of claimants’ characteristics in predicting benefit exhaustion may vary over time, 

DOL encourages states to update their profiling models regularly.19 By using recent data to 

reestimate the model, a state can update the coefficients for weighting claimant characteristics in 

the calculation of the profiling score and thereby improve the ranking of claimants. 

Even when states update their profiling models to reflect recent data, they often do not 

explore the value of making structural modifications to the models. The appropriateness of 

adding new variables, eliminating variables currently in use, changing the geographic coverage 

of the model, and making other changes may not be explored on a regular basis. However, these 

types of changes can improve the identification of claimants most likely to exhaust benefits. 

In this section, we discuss steps that several SIG states have taken to improve the 

specifications of their profiling models and to upgrade their mechanisms to make future model 

improvements. We also discuss approaches that states have taken to compare different model 

specifications to choose the one most appropriate. Finally, we discuss circumstances in which 

the effects of some types of model improvements on the selection of claimants who are 

statistically most likely to exhaust their UI benefits may be limited. 

 19As a condition for eligibility for a SIG, DOL required that state applicants either (1) had 

updated their model in the past two years, or (2) had promised to provide written assurance that 

they would do so within 90 days of the grant award. 
38

1. Updates to the Profiling Model’s Specification 

Several SIG states have explored the appropriateness of making changes to their profiling 

model’s specifications (Table II.2).20 Some of these potential changes have been to specify 

currently used variables in different ways. Examples include (1) increasing the number of 

possible categories for a claimant’s educational status, tenure, or occupation; (2) changing the 

way that seasonal effects on unemployment are specified, such as using variables for the month 

in which the claim was filed; (3) changing the specification of variables to represent the 

influences of UI benefits and labor market attachment on benefit exhaustion, through different 

combinations of the WBA, base period earnings, and UI replacement rate; or (4) respecifying 

variables to indicate different geographic regions of the state, such as using more variables for 

different regions or including variables for large cities or other urban areas. 

Other changes are to include variables that have not previously been used. For example, 

Alaska and Louisiana added variables to indicate whether a claimant had a claim in a previous 

year and whether benefits had been exhausted for this prior claim. Alaska also added variables 

on the number of base period employers and complex indices of minimum expected 

unemployment and hiring rates. West Virginia added a variable to identify “delayed filers.”

21 

This variable—calculated as the time between when the claimant lost the job and when he or she 

filed for benefits—is characteristic of people who had inadequate information about the job 

market and erroneously thought they could get a job quickly. Maryland is updating its model by 

 20The SIG-funded changes to the model differ from periodic updates to the model by 

incorporating new data. Periodic updates will reflect the effects of changes in the economy and 

claimant characteristics on who is likely to exhaust benefits. 

21South Carolina added this variable to its model several years ago, after finding that it is a 

very strong predictor of benefit exhaustion. 
39 

TABLE II.2 

MAJOR CHANGES TO STATES’ MODEL SPECIFICATIONS 

State Major Changes to the Model Specification 

Alaska Excluded industry, occupation, and delayed filer status 

 Increased categories for local office exhaustion rates and tenure 

 Excluded the WBA and base period earnings but included the dependent benefit 

ratio (dependent’s benefits times potential duration divided by the WBA) and 

the wage replacement 

 Included the number of base period employers and reason for job separation 

 Included an indicator for the minimum expected unemployment (based on the 

date of first payment, potential duration, and local area unemployment rates) 

 Included a hiring index (based on the geographical area and industry) 

 Included indicators for a prior claim and a prior exhaustee 

Louisiana Increased categories for education, occupation, and industry 

 Eliminated the replacement rate and added the WBA and earnings 

 Included an indicator for other income 

 Included indicators for a prior claim and a prior exhaustee 

Minnesotaa

 Increased categories for education, occupation, and industry 

 Included the WBA and an indicator for a high wage replacement ratio

 Included indicators for a prior claim and a prior exhaustee 

 Included perceived reason for job separation 

 Included more detailed specification of geographic region and office location 

within Minneapolis-Saint Paul area 

 Included an indicator for a delayed filer 

 Included indicators for the month in which the claim was filed 

 Included the county monthly unemployment rate 

 Included many interaction terms with these variables 

New Yorkb Excluding occupation and a large layoff indicator 

Including categories for geography, and categories for the length of the prior UI 

claim 

South Carolina Considered but rejected using substate models based on geographic region 

Washington Converting from SIC codes to NAICS codes 

West Virginia Increased the number of categories for education and seasonal filing status 

 Eliminated categories for WBA and included continuous measures of the WBA 

and wage base 

 Included delayed filer status 

 Included an indicator for other income 

 Included the number of reopened claims during a previous benefit year

 Converted from SIC codes to NAICS codes, and from DOT codes to SOC codes 

 Combined 14 industry-specific models into 1 model 

Wisconsinc

 Considered switching from Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) codes to 

SOC codes and from SIC codes to NAICS codes 

Updating the data on growing and declining occupations and industries 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 
TABLE II.2 (continued) 

 

40 

NOTE: Maryland is in the process of updating its model and has not determined which variables will be included 

or excluded. 

a

Minnesota has four separate models for claimants with different potential durations. The coefficients and variables 

used vary across these models. 

b

New York has not yet implemented its new model, but it has selected these specifications to be implemented once 

programming resources become available.

c

Wisconsin identified these as important changes to their model but could not access the programming resources to 

implement any of them except the change in the occupation classification used. 
41

reestimating the old model specification and has explored the possibility of adding other 

variables; however, the state has not changed the program to include new variables. 

New York worked with a statistics professor and graduate students at a local university to 

explore variables with the best predictive power for its profiling model. Some of the variables 

they examined were seasonal indicators, the duration of the most recent previous UI claim (if a 

claimant had previously collected benefits), the wage replacement ratio, a mass layoff indicator, 

industry, occupation, tenure, education level, and geography.22 They also explored different 

definitions of the outcome variable using (1) a binary indicator of exhaustion, and (2) the 

duration of the UI claim. In the end, the researchers’ preferred model included the following 

variables: (1) industry, as defined by first two digits of the SIC code; (2) a set of geographic 

indicators; (3) tenure, in four categories; (4) measures of education; (5) categorical variables for 

the length of the most recent prior UI claim; and (6) exhaustion as the dependent variable. The 

state hopes to implement a revised model when programming resources become available. 

Updating the model also can include an exploration of the type of model to use and over 

what time period to use the data. For example, New York’s researchers considered (1) whether 

logistic regression or nonparametric scoring using contingency tables was a better method of 

model estimation, and (2) whether model predictions were stable over time.23 On the one hand, 

 22To aid in developing its model, New York conducted an Internet-based survey of profiling 

models in other states. Over half of all states responded to the survey, which asked about the 

type of model used, which variables were in the model, and how they were defined. These data 

helped inform the state about potential variables and definitions to test in its analysis and are 

available to other states (see Appendix A). 

23A logistic regression imposes a restrictive mathematical function upon the data and 

estimates parameters for the function. Contingency tables divide data into groups on the basis of 

the values for the explanatory variables and do not impose a functional relationship between the 

explanatory and dependent variables. 
42

use of a logistic regression requires assumptions about the relationships between variables—

assumptions that may not be accurate. On the other hand, the number of variables that can be 

used with the contingency table approach is limited, because cells with few claimants are often 

statistically unstable. Comparing the accuracy of these methods showed that, for New York, the 

contingency tables were generally preferable. They also concluded that their preferred model 

should be estimated on a relatively short period of data (about two years), because the results 

were not very stable over time.24

Another change is to switch from using separate models for different subgroups within the 

state to one model for the entire state, or vice versa. West Virginia switched from using 14 

models—one for each major industry—to one model for all industries.25 The state previously 

separated claimants by industry categories because of the computational difficulties involved in 

calculating scores. Combining all claimants into a single model, now feasible with modern 

computers, has greatly eased the challenge of model estimation. 

Although states may have the capacity to make changes that are viewed as desirable to their 

models, they may decide that doing so would be inappropriate. For example, Louisiana decided 

against including a county unemployment rate variable in its model, because doing so would 

impose additional computational burden but would add little to the predictive ability of the 

 24New York’s researchers acknowledged that measures beyond those included in its model, 

such as the strength of the economy, may affect the accuracy and stability of predictions over 

time. 

25Some states, such as Washington and West Virginia, have explored structural 

modifications to their models in conjunction with converting industry variables from Standard 

Industrial Classification (SIC) codes to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 

codes. For a short time, some states may need to run their profiling models without the use of 

industry variables while they develop and implement conversion maps between the SIC and 

NAICS codes. 
43

model.26 Likewise, South Carolina explored, but ultimately rejected, using substate models 

based on geographic region, because doing so would not greatly improve the likelihood of 

correctly identifying exhaustees within a locality. 

2. Simplifications to the Process for Conducting Future Model Updates 

Because of the importance of using model coefficients that reflect up-to-date information on 

the conditions influencing whether claimants exhaust their benefits, West Virginia, New York, 

and Alaska have sought to improve the method for updating their models. Maryland also is 

receiving technical assistance from DOL on how to simplify their updating process. These states 

previously have not had easy-to-access mechanisms for rerunning their model as new data 

become available, because of difficulty accessing either necessary data or the resources of 

programming staff to conduct the updates. Setting up procedures to update the model more 

easily in the future has involved developing the interdepartmental capacity to retrieve the 

necessary data and conduct the analyses. 

In West Virginia’s case, the state greatly simplified its process for updating the model by 

eliminating the process of constructing a “key” for each claimant. This numeric key was a linear 

combination of the input variables in the model, and the digits in the key represented values for 

claimant characteristics, such as the level of education or the WBA. As with WPRS regression 

models, these keys mapped claimant characteristics to a profiling score. Although this process to 

translate claimant characteristics into a profiling score may seem straightforward, it made 

updating West Virginia’s model very complex because of the use of 14 industry-specific 

models—there were 40,000 different values for the key. As part of the SIG efforts in converting 

 

26Minnesota included county unemployment rates, even though using these data greatly 

increases the complexity of running the model. 
44

the state’s 14 models to 1 model, the state added an equation to the mainframe so that claimant 

characteristics could be multiplied by the appropriate coefficients and directly converted to a 

score. Room in the model was made for new variables and extra categories for existing 

variables, so that future changes to the model could be incorporated more easily. 

New York is creating a server-based relational database to facilitate future updates of its 

profiling model. Once complete, this database will bring together various data sources (such as 

UI records and employee wage records) and transform them as necessary to be used in the 

profiling model. The SESA plans to use these data to update its model weekly. A staff member 

will run a set of programs that will (1) archive the prior model in case of appeals, (2) calculate 

new scores for each set of claimant characteristics, and (3) update the state’s contingency table 

with these scores. The availability of these data in the relational database also may facilitate 

future explorations of the best specification for the profiling model. 

In Alaska, the state changed the process of implementing profiling model updates to reduce 

staff time for data processing. They created within their database tables that contain information 

on each variable in the model, including the coefficients. These tables can easily be modified 

once an economist in the department updates the coefficients. Adding or removing a variable 

would require some assistance from data processing staff, but still would take less time than the 

previous process did. 

3. Methods to Identify Better Model Fits 

Although no model will predict perfectly which claimants will exhaust their benefits, states 

have used several ways to examine the appropriateness of changes to their models. Staff often 

examine plots of the data and the correlation between variables and the probability of exhaustion. 

A higher correlation suggests that the variable is more likely to predict exhaustion. They also 
45

may compare the model’s R-squared values; higher values indicate that a greater proportion of 

the variation in the model’s dependent variable is explained by the regressor variables. 

Staff may also examine how well different models predict which claimants are likely to 

exhaust benefits. However, they need to pick, for the predicted probability of exhaustion, a 

cutoff level above which claimants are assumed to exhaust and below which they are assumed 

not to exhaust. This approach may be useful, but it has limitations, because the cutoff value is 

arbitrarily determined. An appropriate strategy may be to pick a value such that the number of 

claimants above it equals the number of claimants who actually exhausted benefits in the 

historical data. Another way of comparing models is to determine how many of the highestscoring claimants actually exhausted benefits. If a state can serve 100 of its 1,000 claimants, for 

example, then it may be most concerned about correctly identifying the 100 highest-ranking 

claimants as exhaustees and less concerned about identifying claimants with low scores as 

nonexhaustees, because they are not going to be served anyway. Thus, a model that correctly 

identifies the 900 lowest-scoring claimants as nonexhaustees may be less valuable to a state than 

a model that identifies the 100 highest-scoring claimants as exhaustees, even if the former 

model’s predictive power is stronger when measured in other ways. 

An alternative, but similar, approach is to compare models based on differences in predicted 

scores between two groups of claimants. Since New York had the capacity to serve 50,000 

claimants, the state’s researchers identified a threshold score that would identify about this 

number of claimants who were likely to exhaust benefits. Claimants with scores above this 

cutoff were classified as “high-risk,” while those with lower scores were classified as “low-risk.” 

When evaluating different models, these researchers placed a strong emphasis on the difference 

between the predicted scores of high- and low-risk claimants. The larger this difference, the 

better the researchers considered the model. They preferred this measure as a criterion for 
46

ranking models over the absolute level of the high-risk claimants’ scores, because the difference 

measure indicates how well the model distinguishes between the two groups and may be less 

sensitive to economic conditions that vary over time. 

A final approach to examining the appropriateness and accuracy of a model specification is 

to restrict the sample of claimants upon which the model specification is developed and test its 

accuracy in predicting benefit exhaustion using another sample of claimants.27 The subsets of 

claimants upon which model development and testing are conducted should be random samples 

of claimants. If they are not, the coefficients estimated from the model may be biased, and poor 

model predictions may result if the model is implemented for actual use. 

Despite using various approaches to comparing models, states generally have not examined 

problems in their statistical analyses caused by using samples of claimants who have already 

participated in WPRS services. Assuming that receipt of these services lowers the likelihood 

that claimants exhaust their benefits, the relationship between the characteristics of claimants 

who have received profiling services and their probability of exhaustion is attenuated. For 

example, suppose that a state’s pre-SIG model identified high school dropouts as more likely 

than high school graduates to exhaust benefits, and, as a result, dropouts are more likely to have 

participated in profiling services. A new model, using data from prior years, will find a weaker 

effect of dropout status on the probability of exhaustion than would have been the case if 

profiling services had not been delivered. The statistical techniques that could be used to address 

this problem are quite complex. 

 

27Alternatively, a researcher can use one or more years of data to estimate a model and 

examine its accuracy with another year of data. 
47

More generally, identifying factors associated with benefit exhaustion and comparing 

differences across models requires a high level of statistical sophistication and may be quite 

challenging to state-level staff who do not have strong backgrounds in statistics and analysis. 

This finding is consistent with what was found in a survey of state administrators, who reported 

that, compared to many other WPRS tasks, developing a method to profile claimants was 

difficult (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b).28 SIG states that worked on their model 

specifications usually either had one in-house person work on it or had the state hire someone 

else (usually a local professor) to do the work. Because of the complexity of the task, in-house 

staff may not have many other interdepartmental staff with whom they can share ideas and from 

whom they can request assistance. Including other staff in the analysis may be difficult, because 

the technical staff may have a hard time explaining the concepts to other staff. However, states 

that choose to contract out the work also may encounter problems. On the one hand, states may 

have difficulty understanding what realistically could be expected from the contractor, how 

much the proposed model changes would affect the accuracy of model predictions, and whether 

any proposed model improvements are large or important enough to warrant overcoming any 

necessary logistical or operational hurdles. Thus, states may not be well-informed consumers of 

the analysis provided. On the other hand, the contractor may not have enough institutional 

knowledge of the WPRS system and the relevant data systems to understand the theoretical and 

operational implications of model changes. Thus, states may have to spend time helping the 

contractor become familiar with the institutional details necessary for a sound analysis. In 

 

28Most states that received technical assistance from DOL for WPRS activities received this 

help with their profiling models. Relatively few administrators thought that they needed 

additional help, but that could be because they did not plan at the time to update their models or 

think they needed to. 
48

addition, if the state is unable to secure the assistance of the same contractor when conducting 

future model updates, it would be inefficient to have to explain the institutional information 

again to a different contractor. 

Given these types of challenges, DOL offers assistance to states that undertake these 

investigations. This assistance has included helping states with their specific model 

investigations and promoting the cross-state sharing of analysis strategies at conferences. 

Several states that have received this assistance reported that it was quite useful. The need for 

additional information sharing and technical assistance from DOL is ongoing, as state models 

become outdated and as the data and program environments change.29

4. Limitations in How a Better Model Specification Affects Service Delivery 

Although increasing the statistical fit of the profiling models may seem initially to lead to 

better service delivery, the extent to which these model improvements cause better identification 

of and service to claimants may be limited. Because of political factors or constraints on the 

mobility of resources, an improved identification of likely exhaustees does not guarantee that 

these claimants can be served. Indeed, Wandner and Messenger (1999) identified the lack of 

flexibility in shifting resources from areas of low need for reemployment services to areas of 

high need as a key problem in some states. 

Suppose, for example, that all claimants in an economically depressed region of the state are 

more likely to exhaust benefits than are claimants in another region that has a stronger economy. 

Compared to a model that did not include an indicator variable for a region, use of an indicator 

variable to represent one of these two substate regions would improve the statistical fit of a 

 

29As part of its SIG efforts, New York compiled information on the features of and variables 

used in state models, a resource that other states may find valuable. 
49

profiling model. Using the better-fitting model, a ranking of claimants in the state on the basis of 

their likelihood of exhausting benefits would suggest that all the state’s resources to provide 

reemployment services should be directed to the more economically depressed region in the 

state. If reemployment service resources are not mobile across regions, however, some claimants 

in the economically stronger portion of the state will continue to receive services in lieu of 

claimants in the economically depressed area. Political considerations within a state also may 

prevent the reallocation of resources in the most appropriate way. Other improvements to the 

profiling model, such as the use of separate substate models, also can lead to better statistical fits 

and different rankings of claimants across offices, but they may not lead to different claimant 

rankings within local offices. 

Despite these limitations, updating a state’s profiling model still may be useful, because 

many model improvements may result in a better identification of high-risk claimants and a 

greater likelihood that these claimants will be served. Nevertheless, states may need to rely on 

other mechanisms to increase the mobility of resources or address political concerns about the 

reallocation of resources when those activities are desirable for ensuring that the highest-risk 

claimants receive reemployment services. 

51 

III. IMPROVING REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

Delivering reemployment services is at the crux of achieving the goal of the Worker 

Profiling and Reemployment Service (WPRS): promoting reemployment and reducing the 

duration of Unemployment Insurance (UI) claims. Although Significant Improvement Grant 

(SIG) states have organized the delivery of WPRS reemployment services in different ways, their 

service delivery structures all contain a combination of an orientation workshop, an assessment, 

and basic reemployment services (Table III.1). States’ orientation workshops vary in length and 

intensity. Some are extensive and thoroughly cover many reemployment topics, such as resume 

writing, interviewing skills, and local labor market information. Others are brief sessions that 

explain the availability of services but do not provide them. These are sometimes intended to be 

followed by in-depth reemployment activities. Often, states use an assessment process after the 

orientation workshop to determine what services claimants need to facilitate their job search. 

While claimants are collecting UI benefits, states offer various follow-up activities, both 

mandatory and voluntary, to help claimants enhance their job skills or job search skills. At the 

same time, states offer computer-based self-access resources to claimants (such as job listings or 

career assessment tools) to improve their job search, typically in resource rooms mandated by the 

Workforce Investment Act (WIA). 

Many states used their SIG funds to improve various aspects of WPRS reemployment 

service delivery or to increase their capacity to offer services. The main ways they used were: 

• Improving Orientation and Reemployment Workshops. Several states used the SIG 

to improve and standardize the content and style of workshops that one-stops offer. 

A common goal of these changes was to increase claimant participation and 

engagement in the workshops. The central office staff of some states revamped their 
TABLE III.1 

REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES IN SIG STATES 

Required Orientation Workshop Assessment Process Follow-up Activities 

State 

Intensive 

(More than 

4 hours) 

Moderate 

(Between 1 

and 3 hours) 

Brief 

(Less than 1 

hour) 

One-on-One 

Meeting with 

Staff Self 

Required, One-onOne Meeting/Other 

Activity Voluntary 

Alaska X X X California X X X Louisiana X X X Maryland X X X Minnesota X X X North Carolina X X X New York X X X South Carolina X X X Washington X X X Wisconsin X X X West Virginia X X X SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

NOTE: These characterizations are inherently general, because the types of services that are required or available vary across 

local offices within a state and as WPRS workloads fluctuate over time. 

52 
53 

workshops and trained local office staff on the changes. In contrast, Wisconsin asked 

several local office staff to assess and improve their workshops. Alaska facilitated 

sharing of workshop strategies among local office staff through regularly scheduled 

teleconferences and workshops.

• Strengthening the Assessment Process. Four states used the SIG to strengthen the 

ability of staff to tailor individual services plans to the unique experiences and needs 

of each claimant. To do so, Minnesota and Washington developed assessment forms 

that are or will be used to identify claimants’ needs for reemployment services. 

Minnesota also examined how to use the form to facilitate the identification of 

sensitive personal barriers to work, such as substance abuse or weak family support 

structures. Alaska trained staff to better identify these types of problems that may 

interfere with reemployment. New York used SIG funds to provide commercially 

available career assessment software to local offices. As part of these efforts, the 

states established policies pertaining to the confidential nature of this information. 

• Enhancing Follow-Up Activities. Several states used the SIG to strengthen 

claimants’ involvement in reemployment services throughout their UI claim periods. 

Wisconsin did so by developing procedures to contact claimants at specific intervals 

to encourage voluntary participation in services. Other states developed and 

implemented mandatory requirements for claimants who continue to collect UI 

benefits, often tying these activities to eligibility reviews. These and other follow-up 

activities facilitate states’ learning about the employment statuses of claimants, which 

can improve statistics on claimant outcomes.

• Facilitating Receipt of Self-Access Services. WIA’s emphasis on self-service 

activities, along with changes in technology, has influenced state approaches to selfaccess services. Several states encouraged the use of new technology by increasing 

the availability of computers, the Internet, and computer-based resources. All states 

provide either one-on-one staff assistance or special workshops on the use of new 

technology as part of their regular operations, but California explored making such 

assistance a formal part of WPRS. As part of its mandatory WPRS orientation 

workshop, California developed and pilot-tested a new component that teaches 

claimants how to use the Internet for job searches.

• Increasing Service Capacity. Because WPRS is designed to allocate resources to 

claimants most likely to exhaust UI benefits, North Carolina, West Virginia, and 

Wisconsin used the SIG as a mechanism to adjust overall service levels. They did so 

by allocating new SIG-funded staff to deliver WPRS services in areas with either 

historically low service capacity or anticipated high needs. North Carolina 

specifically targeted workers from declining industries to receive intensive 

reemployment services.

A. IMPROVING ORIENTATION AND REEMPLOYMENT WORKSHOPS 

Orientation and reemployment workshops are key services among the wide range of 

reemployment services states offer to WPRS participants. Group workshops make it possible for 
54 

states to help a large number of claimants cost-effectively. Most states require WPRS-mandated 

claimants who are not exempted for good cause to attend an orientation workshop, which 

typically covers (1) WPRS requirements, (2) WIA resources, and (3) basic job search advice. 

Some states run extensive “orientation” workshops that provide advice on topics such as job 

search techniques, resumes, cover letters, and interviewing. Other states run very brief 

orientations and then offer in-depth workshops on specific job search topics. Participation in 

additional workshops may be voluntary or mandatory. Both orientation and in-depth 

reemployment workshops are vital ways to provide information and motivation to help WPRS 

participants return to work quickly. 

Either approach to providing orientation workshops entails trade-offs. The extensive 

workshops ensure that claimants will receive substantive information on several topics. 

However, individualizing services is difficult with this approach, and some claimants may have 

to spend time receiving unnecessary information. These workshops may not be followed up with 

individualized services, because most topics have been covered or a lot of the staff resources 

have been used. 

On the other hand, brief orientation workshops provide a basic introduction to services 

available in the one-stop or community, but they do not provide claimants with many specific job 

search skills or guidance. Though claimants can return for additional services that best serve 

their needs, these services may be voluntary, so some claimants may not receive adequate help if 

they do not actively pursue it. Even when these services are mandatory, the followup typically 

requires a lot of staff time and good data systems to track and enforce participation. In addition, 

staff may be reluctant to single out claimants to participate in certain services. 

When designing workshops, states vary in how much control they give to local offices. 

Their practices usually represent the trade-offs between statewide standardization and 
55 

responsiveness to local needs. Some states use a centralized approach where the state office 

develops the workshop format and staff training. In contrast, others use a localized approach 

where each local office or one-stop develops its own format and trains staff to deliver the 

workshops. On the one hand, a centralized approach may increase uniformity in the quality of 

workshops offered and minimize the duplication of local staff efforts. On the other hand, a 

localized approach may cultivate creativity and innovation and allow for specialization to local 

labor market conditions, needs of individual claimants, and the styles of individual facilitators.1

 

In either case, the workshops were often re-designed to include updated job search information 

(such as finding job leads on the Internet and utilizing labor market trends) and to encourage 

greater participation by the claimants during the workshops. 

In this section, we discuss how six SIG states have used different approaches to improve 

their WPRS orientation and reemployment workshops. The most common approach that SIG 

states took to improve and standardize workshops was to conduct staff training sessions and/or 

develop workshop materials centrally, particularly for orientation workshops.2 Other states used 

less centralized approaches, such as requesting that some local offices individually revamp their 

workshops or cultivating dialogue between local offices to encourage the sharing of workshop 

materials. Whether the approach was centralized or localized, states expected these 

 1

Some factors for states to consider when developing a workshop are whether there is a 

common body of information that they believe is important to provide to all profiled claimants, 

how much they value providing individualized services, and whether they have the resources to 

offer both extensive orientation workshops services and individualized follow-up services. 

2

Prior to the SIG, Washington revised its workshops using a centralized approach. Key 

features of the series of six workshops are (1) staff from one-stop partners can lead the 

workshops as long as they meet certain standards; (2) they are designed to appeal to a wide 

audience and are not program specific; and (3) the sharing of information relies more on 

activities that engage the attendees to participate than on a lecture-based style of presentation. 

All workforce development areas have adopted this workshop series to use in the one-stops. 
56 

improvements to bring about shorter unemployment and UI claims durations, as well as better 

matches between claimants’ skills and job requirements. States also hoped that offering highquality workshops that satisfied attendees would increase participation in later ones. 

1. Improving Workshops Through Centralized Training and Standardized 

Materials—Louisiana, South Carolina, New York, and Maryland 

By training local staff and developing new workshop materials centrally, states hoped to 

provide workshops of consistently higher quality in terms of delivery and content. For example, 

Louisiana’s central office provided guidance to facilitators in three ways: (1) developing a new 

video to be used in its six-hour orientation workshops, (2) updating the manual for workshop 

facilitators and the workbook for participants, and (3) conducting statewide staff-training 

workshops. The 15-minute video, which lays out the format for the orientation workshop, 

contains five parts: (1) self-assessment of claimants’ work history, education, interests, and 

goals; (2) resume preparation; (3) job search techniques; (4) interviewing tips; and (5) postinterview tips. Facilitators can show a portion of the video, stop it, conduct exercises, and then 

move on to the next segment. A version of the video is available on CD-ROM to provide a selfguided summary of the workshop to all claimants who come to the local office.3

 The 

workshop’s facilitator manual is more user-friendly, concise, and adaptable than the old manual, 

and allows facilitators to tailor the workshop to claimants’ needs. The participant workbook 

provides exercises and readings that support the topics covered in the orientation workshop. 

Finally, to standardize the style of workshop delivery, training specialists from the State 

Employment Security Agency (SESA) trained workshop facilitators throughout the state. These 

specialists stressed that the delivery should be upbeat and interactive, rather than lecture-style, so 

 3

Louisiana does not allow claimants to substitute using the self-guided CD-ROM for 

attendance at the mandatory workshop. 
57 

that claimants are better engaged. Workshop facilitators were encouraged above all to 

emphasize the importance of a positive attitude in the job search to help claimants overcome any 

negative feelings arising from their recent job loss. 

When developing workshop materials and providing training, states had to balance the 

advantages of greater structure with those of less. For example, the typical tenure of Louisiana’s 

facilitators is less than two years; a highly structured training session on what to include in 

workshops and how to lead them could be particularly helpful to the many newer facilitators who 

may find it challenging to improvise on an abstract concept in order to lead an effective 

workshop. However, a more conceptual training session could encourage experienced workshop 

leaders to be creative in applying the concepts to the needs of their workshop attendees. 

Louisiana emphasized this advantage when it developed its manual and training materials. 

South Carolina and New York focused on training sessions for their workshop facilitators. 

South Carolina conducted a one-day training session called “How to Conduct an Effective 

Orientation” to increase uniformity across offices. Full-time workshop facilitators from around 

the state attended the session, which covered WPRS program procedures and guidelines, reasons 

to exempt claimants, how to encourage participation, topics to cover in the workshop, and 

handouts. Additional training and staff development meetings were held throughout the grant 

period to communicate changes that were occurring to WPRS processes as a result of the SIG 

and the transition from JTPA/EDWAA to WIA.4

 New York conducted statewide, full-day 

training sessions that included presentations on career assessment tools (primarily the Choices 

software), labor market information, and other on-line information resources for job seekers. 

 4

South Carolina’s transition from JTPA/EDWAA to WIA resulted in a large reduction in the 

number of staff who provided reemployment services and training. Thus, the state was forced to 

reduce its delivery of follow-up services and focus on initial profiling and reemployment 

activities. 
58 

The sessions also included a presentation on WPRS issues, such as the revised profiling model, 

profile scoring and rescoring, and case management and tracking. 

Maryland developed a new two-day job search workshop by combining elements of two 

existing workshops.5

 One, called Jump Start, was originally designed for professionals. The 

other, based on research at George Washington University (GWU) on the impacts of 

unemployment on the family, was designed to help people cope with the initial trauma of 

unemployment.6 The new workshop contains information similar to that in the GWU workshop 

but differs in approach, emphasizing more experiential learning. That is, it uses group exercises 

where the facilitators help participants discover concepts themselves. The new workshop has 

four parts: (1) learning about yourself, (2) learning about the labor market, (3) learning how to 

look for a job, and (4) learning what is available to help you look for a job. The first day deals 

with job loss issues and individual skills, as participants interview each other to develop lists of 

their skills. The second day uses material from Jump Start to cover aspects of job search 

instruction that are tailored to an audience wider than just professionals. The material in the 

workshop manual is presented in modules to facilitate revisions or additions as needed.7 Based 

on recommendations from GWU to improve the mix of issues and diversity of the groups, the 

state encouraged local offices to present the workshops to a larger number of participants (20 to 

 5

The Maryland WPRS system requires that all profiled claimants attend a two-day job 

search workshop. 

6

GWU staff collaborated with state staff in the development of this new workshop. 

7

For example, although the manual does not have a section on Internet job search, several 

offices in the state are including a discussion of Internet job search in their workshops. The state 

expects that ultimately staff from these offices will be brought together to develop a common 

module on the Internet and that module will be added to the manual. 
59 

30) than did the former workshops (12 to 15).8

 Customer survey data the state collected indicate 

that most claimants like the new workshop.

2. Promoting Local Office Innovation in Workshop Style and Content—Wisconsin 

In contrast to the previous four states, Wisconsin stressed improving WPRS workshops by 

developing them in the local office. The state directed its “SIG sites” (local offices that received 

SIG funds to expand service levels) to review their orientation workshop and their menu of 

reemployment workshops. To determine which workshops to modify or add, local staff used 

direct comments from participants, responses to customer satisfaction surveys, and their own 

interactions with participants. They updated standard reemployment workshops, such as resume 

preparation and interviewing; and added new specialized workshops, such as job search for older 

workers, use of resume-writing software, and career exploration/goal setting. As in Louisiana 

and Maryland, Wisconsin local staff revamped the workshops to make them more interactive. 

Staff used many sources of information, including the Internet, materials created by other 

facilitators, and their own experience to improve preexisting workshops or develop new ones. In 

some instances, local staff also established job clubs. Because Wisconsin’s SIG sites developed 

workshops based on their own needs, each may have somewhat different materials and structure. 

A customer satisfaction survey the state conducted in the spring of 2000 showed that claimants 

were satisfied with the reemployment services they received at these local offices. More than 95 

percent of participants answered that the workshop was useful and the presenter knowledgeable. 

 8

GWU recommended even larger groups (40 participants), but space constraints preclude 

that. 
60 

3. Developing an Ongoing Dialogue Among WPRS Staff—Alaska 

Instead of developing new workshop materials, Alaska facilitated the sharing of existing 

workshop materials or approaches. Because local office conditions and caseloads vary greatly 

between urban and rural areas, the state allows local offices to conduct orientations in group or 

one-on-one sessions. Hence, Alaska’s local offices use a diverse range of approaches to 

conducting workshops. Drawing on the knowledge and experience of local offices, Alaska has 

conducted yearly conferences and monthly teleconferences to improve and standardize its 

workshops; foster relationship building among, and the exchange of ideas between, local staff; 

and increase future information sharing. Sometimes the state asked local staff to share with other 

facilitators their approaches to conducting workshops on resumes, job applications, interviews, 

and job search strategies. For instance, at the yearly conference, one local office presented the 

PowerPoint presentation it used for orientation. State staff had reviewed the presentation to 

make sure it matched state guidelines and disseminated it at the conference to interested staff 

from other local offices. In addition, these forums were designed to address statewide program 

variation by conveying a consistent message from the central office and providing an opportunity 

for group discussion of questions and concerns. 

Some local staff reported that the teleconferences increased their awareness of the issues 

staff faced in other offices, and they liked the opportunity to exchange experiences, which in 

some cases led them to share information and resources. Many staff also appreciated the 

professional development opportunities offered by the monthly teleconferences and annual 

conferences. The state will continue to hold the monthly teleconferences but will hold yearly 

conferences only as resources allow.9

 9

The state currently does not have plans for another conference. 
61 

Through the dialogue developed during the conferences and teleconferences, the state 

identified resources needed to improve orientation workshops that it was able to purchase when 

SIG funds became available through a grant modification. Some local offices identified needs 

for equipment that would better enable them to conduct workshops and coordinate with other 

programs in their local office. The state purchased equipment to be used in workshops, such as 

laptops and projectors, for some local offices. In addition, Alaska purchased handbooks for all 

local offices to give to claimants at their orientation workshops. Claimants are asked to review 

these materials before their next scheduled meeting with their reemployment counselor. The 

handbooks—“Surviving a Layoff: Coping with the Emotional, Financial, and Job Hunting Stress 

of Unemployment” and “The Job Hunting Handbook, With Wages and Demand for 200 Jobs”—

are intended to provide a user-friendly summary of job-seeking tips that claimants can review 

after their first visit to the local office, thereby becoming more knowledgeable and efficient in 

their future visits. 

B. STRENGTHENING THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS 

The WPRS evaluation (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b) and WPRS workgroup (Wandner 

and Messenger 1999) found that the reemployment services many states provided were not 

always well matched to client needs or intensive enough to reduce the length of unemployment 

spells. Although WPRS-selected claimants are all identified as at risk of poor reemployment 

outcomes, their backgrounds and needs for reemployment assistance can vary considerably. The 

use of a one-size-fits-all approach to service delivery may fail both to capitalize on claimants’

strengths and to address their unique barriers to employment and needs for assistance. In the 

end, such an approach to service delivery might be less effective than those that allow tailoring 

to claimants’ special circumstances. 
62 

Assessments can vary in method, including both staff assessments and self-assessments. 

The issues that each method is likely to identify and address are different. Claimants may be 

likely to identify their job search needs, whereas staff may be more able to identify and address 

claimants’ personal barriers to work. Claimants’ self-assessments may use either complicated or 

somewhat simple assessment tools to identify claimants’ needs. These activities may be either 

voluntary or mandatory and are not limited by the amount of staff time available. The guidance 

of a counselor may be involved to a small extent and possibly at the request of the claimant. 

However, claimants may be less able to identify and address difficult issues and may simply look 

for the easiest way to fulfill any participation requirements. 

On the other hand, counselors may be more adept at identifying and addressing subtle 

barriers to work, such as motivation issues, drug problems, or learning disabilities. WPRS may 

be a good opportunity, early enough in the UI claim, to identify and address these difficult 

matters. Counselors may be able to make referrals to the services and agencies that can help 

claimants while they still have UI benefits. They may also use assessment tools in this process. 

However, this type of assessment generally requires that staff have a particular background or 

specific training. In addition, neither state nor local staff may want to mandate participation in 

specific follow-up services identified through assessment. Finally, the staff resources that are 

available to conduct the assessments, provide individualized activities, and conduct follow-up 

and enforcement of participation tend to vary across local offices. 

Regardless of which assessment approach is typically used, states need to consider whether 

the assessment is sufficient to identify claimants who need training or other intensive services 

and how coordination with the assessments of other one-stop programs could best be achieved. 

Intensive services cannot be provided to all claimants, so access to such services may be 

rationed. However, both the claimants who need these services and the states have the potential 
63 

to benefit if these claimants are identified and provided these services early in their 

unemployment spells. 

To tailor WPRS services to claimants’ circumstances, four states chose to use their SIG 

funds to improve their assessment processes. Some states sought to improve how they assessed 

claimants’ job search needs to match them better with reemployment services. Other states 

sought to improve how they assessed claimants’ personal barriers to work so their staff could 

better address the needs of claimants or refer them for assistance. Regardless of the approach, 

these states expected that better assessment would lead to better matching of claimants with 

available services and, therefore, better matching of claimants with jobs and shorter UI claims 

durations. In this section, we discuss these two distinct approaches to identifying claimants’

needs and matching claimants with services. 

1. Linking Claimants to Appropriate Reemployment Services—Washington and 

New York 

Washington state staff wanted to identify and assess weaknesses better in claimants’ job 

search skills and to direct claimants more effectively to reemployment services. To this end, the 

state strengthened its Job Search Readiness Inventory.10 This inventory fills a gap in service 

delivery, as it focuses on job search readiness rather than job readiness. Prior to the SIG, 

 10With funding provided by its state legislature in the summer of 2001, Washington is 

developing the Results-Based Sorting system, designed to target services better to claimants who 

are identified as at high risk of benefit exhaustion by sorting the claimants into groups that need 

self-serve, core, or intensive services. The goal is to provide a high level of statistical sorting, so 

that claimants are more likely to receive voluntary services tailored to their individual needs. 

Like an electronic reemployment plan that would identify claimants for intensive services, the 

Results-Based Sorting system would provide more than one dimension of a summary statistic 

rather than using a single dimension to rank claimants (as is the case with the WPRS score). 

Because services will be better targeted to claimants who are likely to benefit from them, the 

state hopes to serve more claimants. The state plans to pilot-test the system in 2002 and have 

results in the following year. 
64 

Washington staff had already developed five modules for the Job Search Readiness Inventory: 

(1) skills identification, (2) job search techniques, (3) resumes and applications, (4) labor market 

knowledge, and (5) interviewing skills. State staff developed an intranet pilot version of the 

inventory that would aid in the creation of reemployment plans and ultimately allow the state to 

track service receipt and client outcomes. Pilot tests, however, revealed that local office staff 

preferred to use a paper version of the inventory during orientation workshops. For them, the 

paper version was an easier and more practical tool for identifying the job search skill 

deficiencies of claimants and referring them to voluntary workshops that could help them. 

As part of its SIG efforts, New York focused, by increasing the availability and use of 

proven career exploration tools, on helping claimants assess their career direction and develop a 

reemployment plan. Although most states have some such tools available for claimants to use, 

New York made their widespread use a priority and views these tools as an important component 

of developing state-of-the-art job placement strategies. The state ensured that all local offices 

have certain career exploration tools, such as such as Choices, Career Aptitude Survey, and 

Career Zone (discussed in more depth in Section D), on all resource room computers. In 

statewide training sessions, the state conveyed the importance and utility of using these tools 

consistently. The sessions provided general training on the Choices software to all local staff 

and specific technical training to one staff representative from each office. These tools are 

intended to be used by claimants to identify a career path, ensure that this career is in demand in 

the labor market, and determine how to update their skills, if necessary. The state’s goal is to 

encourage claimants and other one-stop customers to use these tools and for one-stop staff to be 

able to provide some guidance on their use. 
65 

2. Better Identifying Personal Barriers to Reemployment—Minnesota and Alaska 

Most assessment tools focus on basic aspects of job readiness or career planning. Some 

focus on identifying broader personal barriers to reemployment, and Minnesota used its SIG to 

develop such a tool. This tool covers social and psychological issues, such as the claimant’s 

social support structure, attitudes toward being unemployed, and self-image, in addition to job 

search activities and labor market experiences. By covering a broader range of client needs, 

Minnesota hoped that local staff would be better able to guide clients toward one-stop resources 

to address issues (other than employment needs) that might hinder a quick return to work and 

long-term employment. 

Minnesota worked with a university-based psychologist to develop this assessment tool. In 

March 2000, they had 2,681 claimants fill out extensive questionnaires when they visited the 

local offices.11 Respondents were also asked to complete a second survey.12 The psychologist 

analyzed these data, along with administrative data, to develop a better profile of the 

characteristics of claimants who are associated with benefit exhaustion, the time unemployed, 

and the quality of the post-UI job. This research formed the basis for a tool that is tailored to 

identify the needs of claimants at risk of benefit exhaustion. Minnesota is pilot-testing a version 

of the assessment tool and training reemployment services staff to use it to direct claimants to 

appropriate services. 

Because the final version of the tool will be several pages long and will cover sensitive 

topics, it will not be distributed at orientation but will instead be mailed to claimants along with 

the orientation letter, to be filled out at home and brought to orientation. Once reemployment 

 11Claimants who expected to be recalled were excluded from the analysis. 

12The follow-up survey was mailed to claimants around the time they may have exhausted 

benefits and included a small payment as an incentive for participation. 
66 

services staff are trained on how to use the tool, they will meet individually with claimants to 

review their needs and guide them to appropriate services. Although the sharing of both nonsensitive information (such as the claimant’s job search strategies, work history, and work goals) 

and sensitive information (such as motivational, emotional, or social issues that may affect the 

speed of returning to work) could be used to help staff work with a claimant to identify 

appropriate services, the state will not require claimants to show their Needs Assessment to 

staff.13 Even if this information is not shared with staff, an important potential advantage of the 

new tool is to encourage the claimant to think early in the unemployment spell about potential 

barriers to and goals for job search. As claimants do so, they may identify needs for services, 

both those that the state agency can help them with directly and those for which the agency may 

refer them outside the state system. 

Alaska also sought to improve the identification of sensitive personal barriers to 

reemployment. Its approach was to train staff to better identify these barriers and enhance 

program linkages to better direct claimants to appropriate services. During a statewide 

conference, workshop facilitators attended presentations on (1) substance abuse and how it 

affects a claimant’s ability to get and keep a job; (2) how to recognize learning disabilities, 

particularly hidden ones, and when to address them; and (3) self-worth and self-esteem issues 

associated with job loss. These staff also received case management training on how to approach 

and provide referrals to clients with sensitive issues. In addition, state-level staff from WPRS 

and the Veterans Program and local office staff attended an intensive three-day seminar on 

learning disabilities conducted jointly by the state Divisions of Vocational Rehabilitation and 

 

13The state had not required claimants to share the pre-SIG version of the Needs Assessment 

with staff. 
67 

Public Assistance. This workshop was the first step in a multi-departmental planning process to 

develop ways to identify, refer, and follow up with people who have learning disabilities. 

C. ENHANCING FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES 

States vary considerably in whether and how much they require claimants to participate in 

follow-up activities after the WPRS-mandated orientation workshop and assessment process. 

Follow-up activities may include group workshops that specialize in different types of job search 

strategies (discussed in Section A), one-on-one meetings with reemployment services staff, 

receipt of referrals to job openings, job clubs with other unemployed workers, training, and other 

activities. In some states, participation in these activities is encouraged but voluntary. In others, 

WPRS-mandated claimants must participate in one or more follow-up activities throughout their 

claim period. In these states, claimants who do not participate may lose some or all of their UI 

benefits or have their benefits delayed. Although mandating activities is recommended to 

increase claimant participation in services, states vary in their emphasis on enforcement 

(Wandner and Messenger 1999).14 

Because of the importance of working with claimants throughout their unemployment spells, 

several states used their SIGs to develop and enhance follow-up activities. These states had three 

approaches, which often built on established state WPRS and UI structures and priorities. First, 

some states implemented procedures to contact claimants at strategic times after they completed 

their required WPRS activities to remind them of available reemployment services. Second, 

several states began requiring claimants to maintain regular contact with reemployment 

representatives until they got jobs or otherwise stopped collecting UI benefits. Regardless of 

whether follow-up contacts were voluntary or mandated, staff often used them to obtain 

 14The presence of staff procedures and data systems to notify UI of nonparticipation affects 

the degree of enforcement and is discussed in Chapter IV. 
68 

information on whether claimants had found jobs. Finally, some states sought to improve 

information on claimants’ employment status after their participation in WPRS activities. 

1. Reminding Claimants of the Availability of Services—Wisconsin, Minnesota, and 

Washington 

Three states recently developed new ways to contact claimants to remind them of available 

reemployment services. Using the SIG, Wisconsin funded staff in two Green Bay area offices to 

develop and test new procedures to follow up with claimants and increase participation in 

reemployment services. Before the SIG, the state did not have an official follow-up policy, 

except to make sure that claimants attended their required reemployment services. For the most 

part, local office staff did not follow up with claimants to check on their reemployment status or 

offer additional assistance. The SIG plan for followup was to send claimants letters after 12 

weeks of their filing for UI benefits to remind them of available reemployment services, but not 

to require additional participation. Because average UI duration was about 15 weeks, conducting 

followup at 12 weeks focused the follow-up effort on claimants who were experiencing longer 

UI spells, while still allowing sufficient time to help these claimants refine their job search 

before exhausting benefits. Local staff found that claimants who initially were reluctant to 

receive job search assistance sometimes were more receptive to it after failing to find a job on 

their own. However, many claimants still do not partake in additional services, either because 

they had found a job or because they were not interested. 

Ultimately the state determined that the follow-up efforts did not engage enough participants 

in additional services to warrant their continuation, and that the average UI duration did not 

decline significantly during the SIG period. The state continued to support these staff positions 

after the SIG ended but had staff focus on providing WPRS services to more claimants in this 

area of the state. 
69 

As in Wisconsin, local office staff in Minnesota did either no followup or sporadic followup 

prior to the SIG. Since spring 2001, however, these staff are supposed to follow up with WPRS 

claimants at 6 weeks and 15 weeks after their orientation workshops for a “Plan Review.” Each 

of these two followups usually consists of sending a letter with check-boxes inquiring about the 

claimant’s job search outcomes and any additional service needs they may have. Claimants who 

have not dealt with barriers after having been given enough time to address them can be referred 

for adjudication. Claimants also can be scheduled for additional services. Although local office 

staff are instructed to conduct these followups at both times, staff are more likely to do the 6-

week followup than the 15-week one. Staff report anecdotally that claimants are less receptive to 

contact with the state agency later in their unemployment spells. In addition, because of other 

demands on their time, staff may not follow up on claimants who fail to return a letter, or they 

may not send out the second letter at 15 weeks. 

Although not a part of its SIG efforts, Washington developed a widely advertised automated 

system, called Job Hunter, that links claimants with job listings. When claimants place their 

weekly claims calls, Job Hunter matches, by computer, their Dictionary of Occupational Titles 

(DOT) code with Employment Service (ES) job listings. About 10 percent of claimants are 

matched.15 The claimants are automatically notified of any matches to job listings and the 

location of the closest office to which they should report to obtain more information. Because 

claimants must contact a local office, Washington staff have the opportunity to provide other 

referrals and additional services. 

 15The state is hoping to improve the quality of occupation coding done by staff at the UI call 

centers, so that more high-quality matches are made. 
70 

2. Requiring Follow-Up Services—South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, and 

Washington 

After completing their basic WPRS requirements, some states require claimants to report 

regularly to the local office and/or participate in additional reemployment services. Claimants 

may lose UI benefits if they ignore these requirements, which are often monitored through 

eligibility reviews or similar meetings. These efforts are intended to engage UI claimants in the 

services available at the one-stops and to encourage more effective work search. Four SIG states 

were establishing or had begun requiring follow-up services. 

Through the SIG, South Carolina developed a new schedule of “detailed service 

requirements” that identifies a menu of core reemployment service contacts that should occur 

during certain periods throughout a 26-week UI claim. Previously, staff conducting eligibility 

reviews, particularly in larger offices, were often unaware of claimants’ Work Search Plan 

information. Completed in the WPRS-mandated orientation, the Work Search Plans outline 

reemployment activities needed by the claimants. Because there was no formal followup on 

Work Search Plans, staff might have been unaware when claimants did not complete these 

activities. The new schedule of service requirements, which incorporates the Work Search Plan, 

provides a consistent framework for ES and UI staff to direct claimants to services. In addition, 

profiled claimants were to be scheduled for eligibility reviews more frequently than other 

claimants, every four weeks instead of six to eight, so that their job search efforts could be 

closely monitored. 

The benefits to automatic and frequent scheduling of eligibility reviews for profiled 

claimants became even more apparent over the course of the grant period. Before the SIG, 

eligibility reviews were often scheduled to coincide with follow-up reemployment services 

activities. During the grant period, however, funding changes caused a large reduction in the 
71 

provision of follow-up services. The automatic scheduling of eligibility reviews allowed the 

state to ensure that these activities were still being conducted. Nevertheless, because of these 

funding changes, the state had difficulty implementing all stages of the service requirements 

schedule, particularly those for claimants in the latter parts of their UI claims. 

South Carolina also used SIG money to provide intensive follow-up services in some of the 

offices with the largest claims loads.16 Claimants with profiling scores of 0.50 or higher, about 

half of claimants on the profiling lists, were targeted for these additional services. The eight SIG 

caseworkers who provided these services tried to schedule a first meeting with targeted claimants 

within a week of their WPRS orientation. Using the Work Search Plans as a basis, the 

caseworkers then provided one-on-one services, including resume assistance, instruction on 

specific features of the resource room, or searches every few days for job orders matches. Some 

caseworkers also conducted “cold calls” to potential employers on behalf of their assigned 

claimants. The state thought that caseworkers’ ability to know in depth the specific strengths and 

goals of the claimants they worked with was especially helpful in ensuring that job leads were 

identified and pursued. Although SIG caseworkers generally emphasized the beneficial aspects 

of participation rather than its mandatory nature, a claimant who refused to work with the 

caseworker could have had his or her UI eligibility investigated. 

As was mentioned in Chapter II, North Carolina established, with support from SIG, a new 

temporary program, Reemployment Services for Textiles, Apparel, and Tobacco (RSTAT), 

which required that claimants from these industries maintain regular contact with the local 

offices during their UI claim. After participating in a brief orientation workshop and an 

 16Starting in the summer of 2001, South Carolina has used new reemployment services 

funds available to fund staff time to help identify claimants in need of intensive WIA services. A 

difference between the use of the SIG funds and the new funds is that the new funds pay for 15 

full-time equivalent positions that are fractionalized across 36 offices. 
72 

extensive job search workshop, RSTAT claimants had to return to the local office every two 

weeks to meet with staff and discuss their job search progress. Staff sometimes made job 

referrals or job development calls to employers, encouraged claimants to use the Career 

Resource Centers in the office, and made referrals to training funded by WIA and Trade 

Adjustment Assistance (TAA), as appropriate. Because UI eligibility reviews take place every 

fourth week, enforcement of the rules during these meetings was more stringent. These meetings 

also included more thorough reviews of job search activities. 

North Carolina’s other new, ongoing program, called Reemployment Initiative (REI), has 

follow-up requirements similar to those of RSTAT. These claimants are called in every week for 

12 weeks to discuss their job search activities with local office staff. Local offices strive to serve 

all REI claimants, even when a large number are called in. 

In 1999, New York implemented a new policy for followup, developed in conjunction with 

the state’s shift from local office claims filing to telephone filing. Funded by the state (and not 

the SIG), this policy requires all claimants who have collected benefits for 13 weeks to attend a 

brief workshop and report their job search efforts to local offices. They are required to consider 

job offers below their prior wage rates, and they may be instructed to receive case management 

services. Through another non-SIG-funded effort, profiled claimants may be selected for 

intensive case management services, including a requirement that they come into the local 

offices every two weeks until they find a job. Although these claimants are exempt from UI 

eligibility reviews, their benefits may be withheld if they miss two WPRS appointments. 

Adherence to and enforcement of both these case management policies are contingent on the 

availability of resources. 

Although not through SIG activities, Washington also created a program, called Job Search 

Monitoring, to follow up better with claimants. UI staff have follow-up meetings with some 
73 

claimants every six weeks to check on their progress in getting work and to refer them to 

appropriate reemployment services. Staff recommend additional activities to all claimants in the 

program, and they have discretion to prescribe activities to claimants or increase the number of 

required weekly employer contacts. Claimants are scheduled for follow-up meetings to show 

that they have met these additional requirements. Failure to appear for either a first Job Search 

Monitoring appointment or a follow-up appointment, after two call-in attempts, may cause 

benefits to be withheld. 

3. Improving Information on Claimants’ Employment Status—Louisiana, South 

Carolina, and Wisconsin 

A key goal of follow-up activities is to obtain reliable information on claimants’

reemployment progress. This information is useful, as discussed earlier, for referring claimants 

who are having difficulties to further reemployment services. Also, statistics on obtained 

employment are often used to gauge the effectiveness of reemployment activities and can help 

states adjust the intensity and composition of these services to better meet the needs of job 

seekers. However, procuring such information can be difficult for states. For instance, claimants 

who become reemployed often do not report the fact to the ES or one-stop office. As a result, 

states have an interest in improving the quality of their information on claimants’ outcomes. 

Several SIG states have followed up with claimants to improve their data on employment 

outcomes. For example, Louisiana used SIG funds to create in its data system a new screen that 

lists profiled claimants who attended a WPRS workshop so that ES staff can follow up at 1 week 

and 13 weeks after the workshop. Often local offices send follow-up letters to these participants 

to inquire about their employment status, employers, and wages so that the state can better track 

obtained employment. South Carolina and Wisconsin also implemented mechanisms to improve 

“entered-employment” statistics. The South Carolina SIG caseworkers called claimants with 
74 

whom they had been working.17 In Wisconsin, SIG-funded staff followed up with claimants who 

had received UI benefits for 12 weeks. In both cases, staff tried to identify claimants who had 

returned to work. 

D. FACILITATING USE OF SELF-ACCESS RESOURCES 

In recent years, states have increased the menu of self-access resources available to job 

seekers. Various factors have motivated this increase, most notably the enactment of WIA, limited 

ES funding, and new technology. Under WIA, self-access resource rooms in one-stop centers are 

to be made available to all customers. While WIA was designed to increase access to basic, selfaccess reemployment resources, ES funding levels have not expanded at the same pace as the 

demand for services.18 Therefore, providers have had to develop ways to serve more customers 

with the current level of staff resources. Finally, advances in technology, such as the widespread 

use of personal computers and the Internet, have made it easier to offer self-access services. For 

example, job seekers can use computerized career exploration and information packages, as well as 

numerous Internet databases of job listings. In addition, in some states, claimants may review 

general information on the UI program or file claims through the Internet. 

As states rely more on self-access services for job seekers, claimants’ ability to use 

computers becomes an increasingly important consideration. Many claimants may not have the 

computer skills to take advantage of self-access services. For example, one-stop staff in an 

urban area estimated that only half the claimants who attend orientation workshops have any 

computer skills. Research has also found that older and low-income adults are less likely than 

 17South Carolina also reported developing the capacity to identify, through linking UI 

records with their New Hires Database and wage records, claimants who have obtained 

employment. State staff were pleased with the ability of these automated processes to increase 

greatly the detection of obtained employments. 

18ES funding for the past several years has remained about the same in nominal dollars. 
75 

younger and high-income adults to use computers on a regular basis (Needels et al. 2000). 

Claimants in rural areas also may be less likely than claimants in urban ones to be computer 

literate. Because claimants may not be comfortable using computer-based self-access services, 

many one-stops offer workshops on basic computer skills and Internet job searches. 

Several SIG states sought to increase the use of self-access services by providing group or 

one-on-one hands-on instruction or by simplifying self-access computer applications so they are 

more useful to a wider population. SIG states pursued varied strategies that include 

(1) developing a workshop format to teach job seekers how to use computers and the Internet for 

their job search, (2) providing software and staff instruction on new computer-based career 

assessment tools, and (3) enhancing the accessibility of computers and Internet resources in local 

office resource rooms. In the sections that follow, we discuss each of the strategies to increase 

the use of self-access resources. 

1. Teaching Claimants How to Use Computers for Their Job Searches—California 

Although many of California’s one-stops offer various types of computer-related workshops, 

California devoted most of its SIG money to developing and testing a new workshop module to 

teach claimants how to use the Internet for their job searches. California included the SIGfunded Internet module in its WPRS-required Initial Assistance Workshop (IAW) so that 

claimants who were identified as at high risk of exhaustion could benefit early in their 

unemployment spells.19 The goal of this module was to decrease claimants’ unemployment 

spells by teaching them computer skills to access Internet-based job search resources, while also 

 19The IAW typically occurs five to six weeks after the initial claim filing. IAW leaders 

explain how and why claimants were selected for the workshop; provide information on one-stop 

services, the local labor market, and training options; give referrals to selected services; and offer 

job search tips on topics such as how to write a better resume and how to interview well. The 

IAW also may include a tour of the resource room. 
76 

developing their general job search skills. Use (or better use) of the Internet could help 

claimants find jobs within their occupations, learn which of their skills can be used in different 

occupations, consider these other occupations to pursue, and make use of information on the 

labor market. In addition, California hoped that the Internet module would help claimants 

discover potential employers and make contact with them directly. 

The objectives of the Internet module were to teach claimants (1) basic computer skills and 

terminology, such as starting the computer and using basic keyboard, mouse, and Internet 

techniques; (2) registration procedures for CalJobs, the state’s job-listing system; (3) use of the 

Internet for job searching; (4) use of several job-related web sites; (5) use of keywords to define 

skills sets for job search and resume preparation; and (6) organizational skills, such as being 

focused, keeping records, and setting goals. Claimants were expected to progress in at least three 

of these areas, rather than to meet absolute levels of mastery. Many of the points in the lesson 

plan were also useful for a non-computer-based job search strategy. 

The state began to develop and pilot-test this Internet module by conducting research and 

soliciting local input. Staff conducted a literature search on computer training, assessed 

claimants’ computer and Internet use through open-ended questions in a field survey, and talked 

with other service providers about how to conduct Internet job search training.20 The state also 

reviewed U.S. and Canadian job service web sites to identify designs and features of the sites to 

cover in the module. In-house staff then drafted the 45- to 60-minute lesson plan, which was 

reviewed and tested by staff in three local offices. In response to feedback from these front-line 

staff, the SIG coordinator made the lesson plan shorter, less conceptual, and less technical. 

 20Data from this survey of IAW participants suggested that these job seekers reported a 

willingness to use the Internet for their job searches, regardless of their experience with or 

knowledge of the Internet. 
77 

To test the Internet module more broadly in the field, the state selected 12 pilot sites from 

among local offices that conducted at least one IAW per week. These 12 came from different 

regions of the state and represented a variety of different communities. As an incentive, the SIG 

coordinator funded the staff time of IAW leaders for six hours a week for six to nine months, to 

cover the time spent preparing for, conducting, and following up on the workshop module, 

including investigating leads on Internet job search sites.21 The state also had to purchase 

computer equipment for some pilot sites, as their access to appropriate equipment was more 

limited than the state expected.22 After assessing the office’s equipment and the network 

connections, the SIG coordinator provided some pilot sites with laptop computers (with laptopto-TV adapters), TVs to be used as computer monitors, and/or external PC-to-TV converters.23 

Using portable equipment was preferred because the IAW leaders typically do not have control 

over the conference rooms in which IAWs are held and, occasionally, the rooms are unavailable 

for the regularly scheduled IAWs. 

Finally, the state trained IAW leaders in the pilot sites. Before the training, the leaders 

varied considerably in how much they discussed the Internet during the IAWs. The leaders’

computer skills also varied. The training allowed leaders to improve their own skills, become 

familiar with the module, and provide additional suggestions to improve it. Nevertheless, some 

 

21IAW leaders were instructed to assemble and frequently update a list of locally useful web 

sites in addition to CalJobs, the state’s job-listing system, because these lists quickly become 

outdated. 

22As a result, the state obtained permission from DOL to modify their grant expenditures to 

purchase equipment for the sites. 

23Around the end of the grant period, the state replaced these TVs with InFocus projectors, 

which are more expensive but, according to field staff, can project a much clearer display image 

that can be adjusted to the size of the room in which the workshop is held. 
78 

staff remained uncomfortable presenting this material and emphasized it less during their IAWs 

than was required in the lesson plan. In addition, a high level of turnover among IAW leaders 

made it difficult for the state to ensure that leaders were trained well enough to give 

comprehensive presentations and to handle unanticipated deviations from the plan caused by 

problems with the equipment or the Internet.24

As with other types of job search assistance, the Internet module worked best when it was 

tailored to the skills and interests of local claimants. Officially, the module was pitched toward 

claimants who had some computer experience. The IAW leaders “launched the Internet and 

started speaking” so claimants were not bored, although they asked experienced computer users 

to be patient. Leaders reported that even technically savvy claimants could obtain leads about 

useful job-related web sites. In addition, the leaders drew on the skills and experiences of such 

claimants to make the Internet module more dynamic and valuable to all attendees. 

California staff considered, but eventually rejected, several ideas when developing the 

Internet module. They had originally planned for the Internet training to be given to claimants 

who chose “self-directed work search” as their follow-up service from among the six types of 

post-IAW follow-up services. The training would have been an extensive workshop, separate 

from the IAW. However, staff decided to include the Internet training in the IAW, because only 

about 17 percent of WPRS-mandated claimants choose the self-directed work search. In 

 

24In addition to traditional training methods, the state considered two possibilities for 

facilitating training of new IAW leaders and refreshing the skills of more senior IAW leaders on 

an ongoing basis: (1) creating a CD-ROM for training, and (2) designing a web-based training 

system, through which the leaders could review the training material and get tips on Internet 

links. However, California SIG staff rejected the idea of the CD-ROM because they thought it 

would become obsolete quickly. The state was unable to develop the web-based training system 

within the time and resources available. 
79 

addition, staff speculated that adding the module to the self-directed work search option might 

deter claimants from choosing it. 

Staff also considered giving IAW attendees a CD-ROM that listed various Internet sites, but 

they concluded that it would quickly be outdated. They also decided against developing a selfguided module for use in the resource rooms, because they expected to spend a lot of time 

answering claimants’ questions. In addition, California tried, but rejected, two other presentation 

styles. Demonstrations at computers in the resource rooms (with the claimants observing) were 

difficult because of limited availability of the rooms. PowerPoint presentations in conference 

rooms were boring to many claimants, but in contrast, most claimants were very attentive when 

the computers are turned on during the IAWs.25 However, staff needed to have a backup plan to 

convey as much of the information as possible during the IAW if the computers were not 

working. 

California recognized that improving claimants’ computer skills is only one part of ensuring 

their easy access to computer-based job listings and other services in the one-stop resource 

rooms. Independently of SIG efforts, California removed, on the computer browsers, restrictive 

features that had limited claimants’ Internet access to a few preselected job-related sites. Now, 

staff visually monitor the resource rooms to ensure that the computers are being properly used. 

Although not funded by the SIG, this effort greatly improved the potential usefulness of the SIG 

Internet module. (Many of the other SIG states allow claimants to access the Internet through 

some or all of the computers in their resource rooms.) In addition, California is purging outdated 

 25Some one-stops in certain states have computer laboratories so that claimants can get 

hands-on experience using computers during workshops. Although this type of arrangement 

could further improve claimants’ computer skills, this is not the norm, because of financial and 

space constraints. 
80 

or inappropriate job listings from the state-run job bank and may purchase additional computer 

hardware to speed claimants’ access to relevant state or national job listings. 

To examine the effectiveness of the Internet module, California conducted surveys of 

claimants who attended IAWs with the SIG Internet module in the pilot offices. The state also 

compared their UI outcomes to those of claimants who attended IAWs in non-pilot offices in the 

same region. Further, they made statewide comparisons and examined the outcomes of each of 

the 12 pilot sites. IAWs that followed the Internet curriculum were rated more positively by 

participants than IAWs that did not. Nevertheless, most claimants that had no or below-average 

Internet skills prior to the IAW reported being unlikely to use the Internet for their job search 

even after participating in the Internet module. Finally, the state did not find any systematic 

differences in the exhaustion rates or entered employment rates between SIG pilot sites and nonpilot sites. However, it concluded that the SIG Internet module was associated with an increase 

in the number of claimants who received Wagner-Peyser Act reemployment services. 

State staff speculated that problems implementing the module, difficulty targeting services 

to claimants most in need of them, and the IAW’s emphasis on training may have led to these 

null effects. In addition, non-SIG offices probably expanded their discussion of the Internet, and 

offices statewide increased access to it in their resource rooms, around the same time. This 

meant that the comparison group members may have had a very similar exposure to the Internet, 

which reduced the ability of the state to gauge the effectiveness of the Internet module.26

 26Given this, comparisons between pilot and non-pilot sites may reflect only the additional 

benefits to the pilot sites’ claimants of a well-designed curriculum and staff training, rather than 

the broader benefits of a discussion of the Internet during the IAW. 
81 

2. Encouraging Widespread Use of Career Exploration Tools or Computer Skills 

Training Software—New York and Alaska 

Computer-based software packages have the potential to help many claimants in their job 

searches after they receive some basic instruction from staff. As part of its SIG, New York 

focused on increasing claimants’ access to, and use of, career exploration tools. The state’s goal 

was to help claimants make better career choices by deciding on a career direction, 

understanding whether that career is in demand in the labor market, and determining how to 

update their skills. The state purchased desktop and Internet site licenses for Choices, a career 

exploration software package previously available on only some computers in local offices. All 

resource room computers in all local offices now contain this software. Staff typically provide 

clients with some initial assistance so they understand how to use Choices and then can use it 

independently in the resource rooms. The state also purchased an Internet version of Choices 

that claimants can access using a unique user-ID issued by the local office. In addition, the state 

provided local offices a career exploration tool called the Career Aptitude Survey. This tool can 

be adjusted to the claimant’s reading level and can be used with little staff assistance; however, 

staff assistance is required to interpret the results. 

At its statewide training sessions, New York trained reemployment counselors on these 

career exploration packages so they would be comfortable using them and more likely to direct 

customers to do so. In addition, the state modified another career exploration package, called 

Career Zone, which was originally developed for high school students. This package is available 

through the state’s web site and provides occupational information, job postings, and job search 

guidance. The availability of several different career assessment tools may encourage claimants 

with different skill levels and experiences to find a tool that they are comfortable using to 

investigate the appropriateness of their career choices. 
82 

Alaska also purchased computer-skills-training software for one of its local urban offices, 

where computer skills are viewed as particularly important to clients’ jobs search and entry into 

job-training programs. The software allows clients to work individually and with the assistance 

of a reemployment representative to develop basic computer skills, which can help not only with 

job search but also as a means of informal training for future participation in a training program 

or on a job. 

3. Enhancing the Accessibility of Internet Resources—Louisiana 

Because of the recent surge in Internet resources related to the job search, Louisiana 

implemented two ways to help claimants use them: (1) developing a tutorial on using America’s 

Job Bank (AJB), and (2) increasing the number of computers available in local offices. 

Although the state originally planned to develop a workshop on how to use AJB, it concluded 

that such workshops would not be well attended, because of variation in needs over time and 

across locales. Instead, the state decided to develop a CD-ROM to be used on a walk-in basis. 

The 9- to 10-minute CD-ROM guides the user through the different ways of searching for jobs in 

AJB, either by job title, job order number, military code, or keyword. However, as with most 

Internet-based resources, this CD-ROM may need to be updated to reflect any changes in the 

AJB. 

Using the SIG, Louisiana also provided at least two Internet-connected computer 

workstations, including PCs and printers, to each local office. Some offices that served larger 

populations received more than two workstations. Particularly in smaller offices, the additional 

PC workstations greatly increased the computer capacity of the resource rooms. 
83 

E. INCREASING SERVICE CAPACITY 

Each of the previous sections discusses ways in which SIG states tried to improve various 

components of reemployment services. States focused attention on workshop improvement, 

assessment procedures, follow-up activities, and self-access services. While these improvements 

may increase the overall effectiveness of WPRS services by increasing the quality of services 

claimants receive, they do not address the effect these services could have if extended to a larger 

number of claimants. Thus, some states also used their SIGs to increase their capacity to provide 

WPRS services to more claimants. 

According to the 1999 evaluation of WPRS systems, 30 percent of states refer less than 5 

percent of UI claimants to WPRS (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b). Even in states that refer a 

higher percentage, some local areas may have more claimants than they can serve, while others 

may underutilize staff. For states that serve low numbers of claimants identified as likely to 

exhaust their UI benefits, increasing service capacity is key to meeting the WPRS goals of 

decreasing UI duration and saving trust fund dollars. Referral to reemployment services through 

WPRS may be one of the only ways that claimants in many states are connected to these services 

as ES registration requirements are eliminated (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b) and the 

establishment of UI call centers removes the physical link between ES and UI brought about 

through colocation of some or all offices. 

The prevailing distribution of WPRS service delivery capacity may reflect three factors: 

(1) historical staffing levels, (2) established staff distribution methods, and (3) space constraints. 

Local staff levels are sometimes remnants of historical staffing patterns that cannot be changed 

without the risk of political ramifications or loss of staff members who are unwilling or unable to 
84 

relocate.27 In other cases, staff may be distributed by methods that do not relate to the current 

demand for profiling services. For example, staffing resource levels may be allocated based on 

claims load, not profiling load. This made sense when local office staff conducted the full range 

of UI activities, but it is less important now in states in which UI claims are processed through 

call centers. Finally, service capacity may be constrained by the physical size of the facility 

where WPRS services are offered. Currently, the availability of physical space for WPRS 

services is changing in many local offices. In response to WIA, some local offices plan to move 

to larger facilities where they can colocate with partner agencies and thus offer more services. 

On the other hand, other local ES offices have reduced service levels based on the size of the 

facility in order to accommodate increases in colocation with partner agencies. In addition, UI 

staff are moving out of local offices in some states. Thus, the amount of space available in local 

offices to deliver profiling services may be increasing or decreasing. 

Some states used SIG funds to increase service capacity for specific clients or in specific 

areas, thereby actively addressing inequalities in the distribution of service capacity.28 North 

Carolina, Wisconsin, and West Virginia targeted resources at claimants from specific industries 

and geographic areas determined either to have a high need for services or to have service 

capacity historically lower than other areas of the state. We describe these strategies in more 

detail next. 

North Carolina’s SIG-funded RSTAT program allowed the state to shift intensive, staffassisted services to local areas where significant layoffs in the textile, apparel, and tobacco 

 27States often use attrition to correct the problems in staffing distribution. Relying on 

attrition may be politically safe, but is usually a very slow process. 

28Alaska has used reemployment services money that became available in the summer of 

2001 to increase the number of staff who deliver services in areas with high demand for these 

services. 
85 

industries had occurred. Many of these claimants tend to have a difficult time finding a job; new 

industry is often scarce in their areas, they may have low education, and their skills are very 

specific to their former occupations. Because RSTAT funds could easily be shifted between 

local offices to respond to area needs based on large layoffs, the state was able to serve more 

than 1,600 claimants in 19 local offices by the end of December 2000 (see Section C). After the 

SIG, North Carolina is continuing to serve RSTAT claimants through the state’s new REI 

program (see Section C). 

One of Wisconsin’s primary SIG objectives was to increase overall service capacity by 20 

percent by adding staff members in areas that were serving a very low proportion of the 

claimants eligible for profiling services. The state added full-time staff members dedicated to 

increasing the service capacity of local offices in the Madison and Milwaukee areas, including 

offices that had offered profiling services, as well as offices that had not but were well suited to 

do so.29 The new profiling offices already provided training, job search assistance, and case 

management services, so the SIG-funded staff added capacity primarily to run orientation 

workshops. In the Madison area, the frequency of orientation workshops doubled. Over the two 

years of the SIG, the number of claimants selected for profiling services increased substantially, 

from 1,325 before the SIG in 1998-1999 to 2,262 in the last year of the SIG (2000-2001). In the 

Milwaukee area, the two additional SIG-funded sites increased the total selected in the last year 

of the SIG to 2,861, compared with 1,527 selected in the year before it. Ultimately, Wisconsin 

surpassed its original goals, in part because the state was able to stretch its funds to hire more 

staff, who in turn were able to serve more claimants than originally projected. The number of 

claimants selected for profiling services statewide increased by about 40 percent, from almost 

 29In addition to the SIG-funded staff, the state added WPRS staff at two other locations in 

Milwaukee. 
86 

11,000 in the year before the SIG to more than 15,500 in its last year.30 Much of this increase in 

service capacity—about 2,300—is due to the increase in the Milwaukee and Madison areas 

where SIG staff were added. 

West Virginia hired 10 part-time staff members to work in offices where there are large 

pockets of unemployment. Their time was completely funded by the SIG and spent on WPRS 

activities. As in Wisconsin, these staff were supplements to the other staff who were providing 

WPRS services as one of their many activities. SIG-funded staff scheduled and led the weekly 

workshops, conducted intake and assessment, made follow-up contact via letter or telephone 

calls with claimants, tried to place the claimants, conducted other case management activities, 

and handled reports. These staff were able to increase their work to full-time because the state 

had funds remaining in the last few months of the grant period. After the end of the grant, the 

WPRS responsibilities returned to JS staff who had been freed up to provide additional 

reemployment services. 

 30Of this total, about 600 claimants were selected for the new non-SIG funded offices in 

Milwaukee. 
87

IV. IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG PROGRAMS AND AGENCIES 

State Worker Profiling and Reemployment Service (WPRS) systems use information and 

staff resources from three programs—Unemployment Insurance (UI), the Employment Service 

(ES), and the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). If WPRS is to be successful, good linkages are 

needed among these three data systems and also among agency staff. However, developing good 

data linkages is challenging, since in most states the three programs have separate data systems. 

Developing linkages and cooperation among staff is also difficult, as the programs have differing 

goals and are managed by various agencies and levels of government. 

A number states used a portion of their Significant Improvement Grant (SIG) to address 

coordination, particularly linkages among data systems. The main improvements made were: 

• Improving the Link Between Identification of WPRS-Eligible Claimants and the 

Call-In for Local Office Services. Maryland addressed this by developing a new 

local-office-based WPRS data system that made implementation of local office 

operations easier, thereby reducing the time between the initial claim and delivery of 

reemployment services. Washington made similar improvements to its system prior 

to the SIG and considered further changes but put those plans on hold pending 

development of a new one-stop operating system. 

• Improving the Link from Service Delivery to UI Adjudication. Recent 

implementation of remote initial claims taking has provided an impetus for improving 

this link in the WPRS system, since adjudicators no longer work in local offices. 

Several states improved this link in the WPRS system by developing electronic forms 

of communication to replace manual systems. 

• Enhancing Reemployment Service Delivery and Performance Monitoring. The SIG 

states used several approaches to achieve this objective. 

- Improving Links Among Data Systems and Providing Wider Access to 

Multiple Data Systems. Linking data systems also reduces the need to enter 

data in more than one system. Several states worked on these improvements 

to enable staff in different programs to cross-reference services and benefits 

their clients receive from other programs. 

- Creating Local Office Claimant-Level Reports. Alaska, Louisiana, and 

South Carolina created additional claimant-level reports to enable local offices 

to better monitor and manage their workloads, identify claimants who need 
88

follow-up calls to offer additional services, or to record information on 

obtained employment. 

- Creating Local Office Summary Reports. Alaska, South Carolina, and 

Washington created summary reports to measure and monitor performance. 

Washington developed links among separate data systems so that crossprogram measures could be used. 

Several SIG states also took steps to improve coordination among programs and cooperation 

between central and local office staff. Several of the data system changes mentioned were 

designed to improve coordination. States used cross-office training sessions to standardize the 

delivery of services, and Alaska took advantage of these sessions to build relationships among 

staff from different agencies. That state used annual statewide conferences and monthly 

teleconferences as forums for various agencies to describe their programs to WPRS staff, with 

the goal of promoting referrals for profiled claimants. Finally, South Carolina used its SIG to 

fund field coordinators to improve communication between the central office and the local 

offices throughout the state. 

A. STRENGTHENING DATA SYSTEMS THAT SUPPORT WPRS OPERATIONS 

Successful operation of WPRS systems requires that data from UI, ES, and sometimes WIA 

programs be linked and used at various stages to track claimants’ progress through the system. 

Initially, data collected during the UI claims process and, in some cases, ES registration, are used 

to create lists of WPRS-eligible claimants and calculate a score that shows the probability of 

exhausting benefits. Then either central or local office staff use this information to call claimants 

in for WPRS services. In most SIG states, local offices used the lists to select the people they 

wanted to call in and the central office mailed the letters. Whether or not they call in claimants 

themselves, local office staff, who are typically ES staff, need to know who these people are. 

When claimants report for services, the fact that they reported, and the data about what 
89

reemployment services they received, are recorded. Information on service plans is also usually 

recorded, particularly when these services become mandatory as part of WPRS. Information on 

which claimants did not report is then used to reschedule no-shows or inform UI adjudicators. 

Most of the SIG states had clear rules about the number of times a claimant could be rescheduled 

(usually once) before a no-show was reported to UI. ES, WIA, and UI may also share 

information on service receipt to facilitate service delivery across programs. 

In their initial implementation of WPRS systems, states addressed in several ways the need 

to develop tracking systems for WPRS (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b). About one-third of 

the states developed new Management Information Systems specifically for WPRS, although 

these typically required some modification of existing systems. Most of the other states 

modified existing systems, most often the ES system. Two states incorporated WPRS into new 

systems they were developing. Regardless of the approach adopted, a new system or a 

modification of an existing one, the degree to which the WPRS system was linked to existing UI, 

ES, or WIA data systems varied substantially.1

 The systems of some states were linked; others 

were not. When they were not, data were entered into multiple systems or transferred among 

programs manually, on paper forms or lists. Sometimes data were not transferred completely, 

which left programs without information that could help the claimants in their job search. 

Some SIG states used their grant funds to improve their WPRS data systems. The impetus 

for doing so came partly from a desire, based on experience, to improve the initial system and 

partly from two external changes that have affected WPRS operations. 

 1

During implementation of the SIG, states were implementing the WIA, which replaced the 

Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance (EDWAA) that had previously 

provided help to dislocated workers. 
90

First, a number of SIG states had recently converted or were converting their UI systems 

from local office, in-person contact with claimants for initial claims-filing and adjudications to 

contact by telephone, mail, or Internet.2

 Because of this conversion, adjudicators were no longer 

stationed in local offices. Systems that relied on the manual transmission of information from 

the ES service delivery staff to UI staff about claimants who did not report for services were no 

longer usable, and another means of transmitting data had to be found. By the end of the SIG 

period, most states were using a computer-based system to report to UI. 

Second, states have been implementing the WIA, which has entailed setting up one-stop 

career centers that generally include both ES and WIA staff, as well as UI staff in cases where a 

local office presence is maintained. In some states, new data systems are being developed for the 

one-stops. In the states we visited, these new systems were typically still in initial development. 

The likely development of new systems affected whether states decided to improve existing 

systems that would eventually be part of the new ones. 

1. Strengthening the Profiling/Call-In Link—The Experiences of Maryland and 

Washington 

As mentioned earlier, the WPRS system process initially involves three steps: 

(1) computation of a profiling score for claimants receiving a first payment or, in some states, 

filing an initial claim; (2) ranking claimants by profiling score for each local office; and 

(3) selecting claimants to call in and send a letter or notice. The first two steps are done in the 

central office, while the third is done in the central office in some states and in local offices in 

 2

Most states have used mail or telephone for continued claims for some time. 
91

others.3 Regardless of how the third step is done, information on who has been called in or 

information to do the call-ins must be transferred from the central office to local offices.4 

In most SIG states, this process appeared to run smoothly, but two used their grant to 

improve the system. Before receiving the SIG, Maryland was using a process developed when 

they initially implemented their WPRS system in 1994. In it, the state mainframe computed the 

profiling score, selected claimants who had scores above a certain threshold and were deemed 

eligible for WPRS, and ranked these claimants by score for each local office. Local offices then 

produced weekly printouts of their lists and called in as many claimants as site capacity would 

allow.5 The mainframe could have generated call-in letters, but the process was difficult, so staff 

sent the letters out manually, using labels printed by the mainframe. Monitoring compliance, 

rescheduling, and reporting to UI was also done manually (see further details below). 

Maryland used part of its SIG grant to make local office operations more automated and to 

speed service delivery. The new system continues to use the mainframe for the initial steps in 

the process; but, once the local office lists are obtained, the files are transferred to a server for a 

PC-based system in the local offices. The local offices use this system and its Microsoft Access 

and Word software to look at the weekly list, decide whom to call in, print out customized 

letters, reschedule claimants who called to report schedule conflicts, record attendance at the 

 3

When this step is done centrally, the local offices usually determine the number of 

claimants to call in. 

4

As discussed in Chapter II, some states also have developed non-WPRS workshops 

designed to bring UI claimants into the one-stops at the beginning of their claims or throughout 

their claims. Particularly in states that have switched to the remote filing of UI initial claims, 

these brief workshops are intended to introduce UI claimants to the services available at the onestops and to encourage their use of ES and other program services. 

5

Claimants are called in to attend a two-day job-search workshop, which is the cornerstone 

of the Maryland WPRS system. 
92

workshop, reschedule no-shows, and send a notice to UI for each claimant who does not attend. 

The system can also be used to send letters, tailored as needed, to claimants for a follow-up 

appointment. The state improved this system further to provide local offices with lists of new 

initial claims so that they can call new claimants in for an orientation session. All claimants, not 

just those selected for WPRS, are invited to these sessions. Their participation is voluntary. 

The other SIG state that considered strengthening the profiling/call-in link is Washington. 

Like the Maryland system, the Washington system initially generated lists of claimants through 

the state mainframe; but having the system send out letters was difficult. That system was 

upgraded prior to the SIG so that it sent the local office lists through the intranet, better enabling 

local offices to generate customized mail-merged call-in letters. A further refinement was 

planned as part of the SIG, namely, to use the intranet to schedule claimants automatically for 

one-on-one staff time slots and group workshops (an idea popular with local office staff, since it 

would save them considerable time). The team working on the automated scheduler identified 

several key features for the system to meet staff and client needs. Staff users would be able to 

schedule individuals for appointments, schedule groups for a single appointment, view the names 

of people scheduled, change or cancel appointments, schedule appointments that would occur at 

other locations, and compose additional activities. The automatic scheduler would notify users 

electronically that appointments were scheduled; notify individuals of a scheduled appointment; 

interface with other systems; sort data so that groups of people could be scheduled for 

appointments; provide reports on who was scheduled for appointments, and when and where 

those appointments would be; and notify users of potential scheduling conflicts. Last, staff 

wanted the system to be flexible enough to allow easy modification and easy for staff to learn. 

Ultimately, however, the state decided to put further work on the automated scheduler on 

hold, because a new operating system for one-stops is being developed, and it is expected to have 
93

a scheduling feature. The requirements for the scheduling system, developed as part of the SIG 

activities, were passed along to the team designing the new one-stop operating system. 

2. Strengthening the Link from the Service Delivery System to the UI System—

Maryland, Minnesota, and Alaska 

Under WPRS systems, information on whether claimants respond to call-in notices and 

participate in mandatory WPRS services is to be reported to the UI system. UI adjudicators are 

then expected to contact claimants who did not respond and determine whether they should be 

denied benefits for failing to report or potentially for another “continuing eligibility” reason.6

In some states, reporting no-shows to the UI system occurs after only one call-in notice, but 

in many states, service delivery staff attempt to reschedule no-shows at least once before 

contacting UI staff. Claimants who call in saying they cannot attend an orientation session are 

rescheduled. Staff may contact claimants who neither call nor show up for the orientation 

session and reschedule them without reporting their nonattendance to UI staff. If claimants 

continue to fail to attend, or the reasons they give suggest there might be a nonmonetary 

eligibility issue, UI staff are notified. 

In a number of SIG states, the system used to notify UI staff of potential issues was neither 

automatic nor electronic. Instead, staff would fill out a form and hand it to adjudication staff in 

their local office. This system continues to work fairly well in states that maintain UI staff in 

local offices, but states that are shifting or have shifted to having adjudicators in call centers have 

had to develop an alternative. Several SIG states addressed this issue. 

As noted, Maryland improved its local office system for WPRS by developing a computer 

system that would send a notice electronically to UI staff when claimants did not attend a 

 6

Generally, UI claimants must meet “continuing eligibility requirements”: they must be able 

and available to work to remain eligible to collect UI benefits. 
94

scheduled WPRS workshop. Under the old system, a hard-copy form was used, but since 

Maryland implemented a UI call center system in which initial claims, continued claims, and 

adjudications are done by telephone, the old manual system of reporting no-shows to the UI 

system had to be replaced. 

Minnesota also faced a similar problem since it changed its UI system from in-person filing 

to one in which about one-half of initial claims are filed by mail and the rest by telephone or 

through the Internet.7

 Adjudication staff no longer work in local offices, so local office service 

delivery staff entered into the UI system the information on whether claimants attended an 

orientation session when called in. However, unless they were told explicitly, the adjudicators 

did not know which claims to investigate. The state addressed this by developing a system that 

allows staff to record information on no-shows and then e-mail it to an adjudicator.8 Local office 

staff use a screen in their data system to record a standard set of information on claimants who 

need adjudication, including what they have learned about the reasons for not reporting. This 

information is then e-mailed to one of the call centers, and tracked by social security number; 

then an adjudicator makes a nonmonetary eligibility determination. 

 7

Claimants can pick up initial claims forms in local offices and fill them out. Local office 

staff then mail the forms to the call centers. 

8

To ensure equitable treatment of claimants throughout the state, Minnesota also 

standardized its policy on the number of times claimants are called in for an orientation session 

before adjudication is to occur. Minnesota’s policy on referrals to profiling services is as 

follows: Claimants who are required to participate in services are called in twice. If they fail to 

show up for a workshop, they are referred to adjudication and may lose benefits. Regardless of 

the outcome of the adjudication, the claimant is scheduled a third time for a workshop once the 

record of the second no-show is entered into the computer. If they do not show for the third 

time, they again are referred to adjudication and may lose benefits. In contrast, claimants whose 

scores are below the threshold for required services are invited once to an orientation. Because 

their participation is voluntary, they are not referred to adjudication if they do not show up. 
95

Finally, Alaska’s switch to call centers also required a data system change to improve 

coordination. In that state, ES staff who provide services to profiling claimants record no-shows 

for mandatory WPRS activities in a joint UI/ES data system that automatically generates a 

request that the claimant call an ES representative to reschedule, and the claim is stopped until 

the claimant does so. If the missed activity is rescheduled within seven days, the claim is paid; 

otherwise, it is adjudicated. ES staff used to have the responsibility for following up in these 

cases, since they were the ones calling or being called to reschedule. However, there was 

confusion in cases where claimants called UI staff about the issue, or a new UI staff member 

unfamiliar with the procedures would initiate his or her own fact-finding activity, not realizing 

that the matter was related to profiling. This confusion became more apparent once Alaska 

changed to call centers and UI staff no longer worked in local offices. The state responded to 

this situation in March 2000 by assigning UI staff the responsibility for adjudication of these 

issues. This switch required changes in the data system to mark cases with WPRS issues more 

clearly for both UI and ES staff. Alaska created separate printouts of claimants with WPRS 

issues, by call center instead of by local office, to facilitate UI adjudication. They also added a 

flag that appears in several case management screens to alert ES staff of the claimant’s status and 

need to be rescheduled for services.9

 Lastly, they developed a communication system in which 

ES staff e-mail questions and information regarding WPRS to a general UI account. UI 

supervisors then review and distribute these e-mails to appropriate UI staff. 

The switch in responsibility for adjudicating WPRS issues improved the efficiency of this 

process for both UI and ES. The roles of staff became more clearly defined and allowed them to 

 9

The following have a new flag or message that identifies claimants with outstanding 

profiling issues: the daily calendar, the client services and appointment screen, the reschedule 

appointment screen, the client list, and the scheduled services screen. 
96

focus on their area of expertise. ES staff now can concentrate solely on helping clients get back 

to work, without the potential conflict of having to enforce UI benefits eligibility requirements. 

Generally, ES staff found the e-mail system to be an efficient way to communicate information 

to UI about WPRS issues. The change also allowed UI staff to ensure consistency in 

adjudicating them. The state’s training of UI staff on WPRS objectives and ES resources helped 

them understand their role in the overall UI and reemployment services delivery system. 

To improve UI-ES coordination further, the state has added an ES staff member at call 

centers that serve large areas of the state.10 These staff will have two main goals. First, they are 

to keep UI staff informed about ES activities, layoffs, and plant closures in their call center area, 

where they also are to serve as liaisons to the ES local offices. Second, they are to reach out to 

all claimants who are interested in receiving information on ES. These efforts are likely to reach 

a broad spectrum of people who typically have not used ES resources. People who are not 

profiled or are not eligible for UI, particularly seasonal workers in the seafood and travel 

industries, would be targeted. In some cases, the ES staff might provide direct services and 

referrals to a local Job Center or to social service resources. 

3. Improving Data Systems to Enhance Service Delivery and Performance 

Monitoring 

In addition to addressing the two main links between agencies that are part of WPRS 

systems (that is, the initial link between UI and the local service delivery system [ES and WIA] 

and the link from the service delivery system to UI adjudication), several states planned to use 

the SIG to improve data systems to enhance service delivery or monitoring of service delivery. 

 10The state funded these positions with the reemployment service funds available after the 

end of the SIG period. 
97

In several cases, states would either develop links among data systems or provide wider 

access to multiple data systems, including UI, ES, WIA, and, when they have access to them, 

separate WPRS data systems. A main motivation for developing links or providing wider access 

is to enable staff in different programs to cross-reference services or benefits their clients are 

receiving from other programs. Another motivation is to avoid duplicate efforts for entering data 

in more than one system. 

For example, Minnesota incorporated WPRS functions into its UI data system, and, as a 

result, information on whether claimants attend orientation and on the services they receive can 

be entered into it. These data are transferred to the Workforce Information System (WINS), 

which ES uses to record registration information, service plans, and service receipt. Service data 

that are entered directly into the WINS, however, are not transferred to the UI system. One 

complication to this is that, because of concerns about confidentiality, ES does not require 

customers to provide social security numbers, since both staff and customers can access this 

system. Although the state would like to have these data in both data systems so that they are 

easily accessible to all staff, it has not made this change, since it is developing for its one-stops a 

new system that would replace WINS. This new system will probably not be able to overcome 

problems in the transfer of ES information when social security numbers are unavailable. 

Two other SIG states (California and Maryland) would like to provide better data access 

among programs, but first they have to work out data-sharing and confidentiality agreements 

among agencies. There seems to be little problem sharing data between UI and ES, but sharing 

data from these systems with other one-stop partners, which are varied and include 

nongovernmental entities, can be problematic. In fact, Maryland law prohibits sharing UI data 

with such entities. 
98

Other states appear to have few problems in sharing data. For example, North Carolina’s ES 

data system is accessible on a read-only basis to WIA program staff and to staff in the state’s 

human services agency. Louisiana also shares data among programs, and, in fact, its systems are 

highly integrated. The UI, ES, and WIA databases are linked to the WPRS master file. Entries 

in the program databases are transferred automatically to the WPRS file, and vice versa. For 

example, activities such as filing an initial claim, receiving a first payment, scheduling for an 

orientation session, enrolling in reemployment services, and completing service participation are 

entered into the agency-specific databases and transferred to the WPRS master file, which then 

sends that information to the databases of other agencies. The WPRS data system is accessible 

to staff in ES/UI and WIA local offices (these are currently being colocated and turned into onestop centers). Separate from its SIG efforts, Alaska is developing, for use by all Job Center 

agencies, a common intake form that includes 13 common elements asked of clients in all 

programs: ES, UI, Job Training, Vocational Rehabilitation, and Public Assistance. Because this 

system would allow the sharing of this basic information, staff from other agencies could view 

some ES and UI data and save time during the intake process after a referral. 

Three of the states (Alaska, Louisiana, and South Carolina) used part of their SIG or other 

funds to increase their ability to provide services by improving the reports available to local 

service deliverers. Alaska’s WPRS staff worked with Job Training staff to develop, from the Job 

Training system, a report that identifies claimants in training programs. This report allows local 

staff to identify and record which WPRS participants enrolled in and completed training, thereby 

improving information on claimants’ participation in services. Louisiana developed several 
99

reports for local office staff to determine who needs a follow-up call to communicate information 

about additional services or to gather information on obtained employment.11 

These reports list: 

• Claimants who received services recently without obtaining employment 

• Claimants with job referrals and claimants who were no-shows for required WPRS 

activities 

• Claimants who attended workshops 

South Carolina developed several reports to help local office staff manage and monitor 

workloads and determine who needs follow-up calls. These reports contain: 

• A list of claimants who filed for UI benefits each day 

• A claimant status report showing the initial claim date, profiling score, WPRS 

activities, referrals, whether claimant was placed in employment, and the last UI 

claim date 

• A list of claimants who are continuing to receive UI benefits 

South Carolina also added a local-office-level report that shows the number of claimants 

selected for WPRS, attending orientation, completing an eligibility review, placed, and obtaining 

employment. Despite the flexibility that these reports offer for tracking claimants’ activities, 

local office staff did not use them as much as had been envisioned, because of strains on staff 

resulting from heavy workloads, changes in staff, and other changes to the reemployment service 

delivery system. Some of the most experienced staff also may have been resistant to change in 

the procedures they had been using to manage and monitor their clients. 

 11Some of these reports had been available but were lost when the state converted its system 

to address Y2K issues. 
100

Both Alaska and West Virginia used some of their SIG funding to identify and correct 

problems in the processing of the 9048 and 9049 reports. West Virginia had been losing 

information recorded by some local office staff, which made levels of service delivery appear 

lower than they actually were. The state now believes the quality and consistency of the data to 

be much higher. Alaska clarified data definitions for these reports and carefully documented the 

specifications for future reference. 

Alaska also improved the reports to provide more feedback to state and local staff. On the 

9048 report, the state added tabulations by the number of transactions (in addition to the number 

of individuals, as federally required) for referrals to jobs, job placements, obtained employment, 

services provided, and clients excused because they found employment before they received 

their first service. On the 9049 report, the state created four new versions of the report, in 

addition to the federally required one. These reports are restricted to claimants who “first 

received reemployment services” rather than those who were “first referred to reemployment 

services.” By looking at the experiences of these claimants, state staff hope to gain insight into 

WPRS participation patterns and employment outcomes. This report is tabulated with two sets 

of data: (1) the seven quarters of data, and, (2) five quarters of data where only the first section 

of the report is tabulated. The reports on five quarters are intended to provide staff with more 

timely feedback. These two versions of the report are run separately for (1) claimants who were 

laid off, and (2) claimants who quit or were discharged. 

In addition, all reports and their data specifications are accessible to Alaska’s staff through 

the department’s intranet. These reports are available through the local office and are intended to 
101

guide managers in determining expectations for service levels.12 The WPRS coordinator, by 

explaining how the reports capture data and how the data are used, conveyed to local WPRS staff 

the importance of entering data properly. In addition, the state is conducting computer systems 

training for all ES staff to reinforce these lessons. 

Finally, Washington used some of its SIG funds to continue development of a datawarehousing project that would bring together data from the UI, ES, and WIA systems with the 

goal of using the data for monitoring performance at the local office and state levels. Part of the 

goal is to encourage staff in different programs to think outside their own programs and to use 

cross-program data for analysis and performance measurement. 

The prototype online, interactive, Web-based system (the “Management Decision System”) 

builds on the 9048 and 9049 reports but is more sophisticated. For example, a monthly cohort 

can be tracked by key WPRS measures (numbers profiled, put in the selection pool, referred for 

services, exempted, and so on), as well as the services they received. Also available for the 

cohort are demographic information (such as sex, race/ethnicity, and education) and UI program 

characteristics (such as weeks of benefits collected), pre- and post-UI earnings, and pre- and 

post-UI industry and occupation, as well as changes in some of these measures. Detailed 

information on reasons claimants are screened out of profiling and a distribution of claimants by 

score are available. The data can be split into subgroups for a more detailed analysis (such as on 

subgroups based on profiling status). 

The data also have been used for some special analyses that have helped show the usefulness 

of the concept. Washington has also instituted various performance measures that include a 

“percent of UI benefits” measure that is reported for workshop participants. Hence, this measure 

 12This effort is part of a statewide movement toward creating performance measures and 
102

is constructed from both UI and ES data. Other important ways in which the Management 

Decision System has been used are to gauge the effectiveness of workshops, examine workshop 

show rates, and develop forecasts on dislocated workers for budgeting purposes. 

Developing this project has involved the need to resolve both technical and political issues. 

Technical issues included the need to coordinate calendars of activities and standardize data 

definitions. Coordinating calendars is necessary, since UI operates and uses reports on a weekly 

basis, ES reports monthly, and WIA training is reported quarterly. Standardizing data definitions 

includes the development of a common data dictionary. 

Two of the political issues are the need to procure agreement from each program to initiate 

participation and the need to show the usefulness of the concept. In the Washington case, one 

agency was at first uninterested and concerned about confidentiality, but the issues were 

resolved. 

The long-term usefulness of this system will depend on the amount of interaction between 

program staff and analytic/information staff and these staff’s understanding of important policy 

questions. Specifically, the greatly increased access to data through the data warehouse will 

allow management staff to ask questions more sophisticated than they could before. However, 

they may have to be trained to identify important measures for managing their programs. For 

example, management may want to focus on the number of claimants who are sent orientation 

notification letters and the show rate for workshops, rather than simply the number of claimants 

who get profiling scores. Similarly, management may want to examine the extent to which 

“capacity” in a local office to provide WPRS activities can or should be changed, such as by 

increasing the number of orientation workshops that the office holds. However, the ability to do 

 

(continued) 

program expectations. 
103

so will depend on other constraints at the local office level, such as agreements that 

reemployment services staff have with other one-stop partners concerning room use. Generally, 

the greater capacity for monitoring suggests that management decisions may have to be more 

centralized. 

These types of data-linking and activity reports help reduce the amount of time local office 

staff need to spend on data entry and tracking activities, and increase the time they can spend on 

service delivery. They also monitor program performance and, more generally, further the onestop concept of seamless delivery of services. 

B. IMPROVING COORDINATION AMONG AGENCIES AND OFFICES 

To be successful, WPRS systems require cooperation among staff from the three 

programs—UI, ES, and WIA—and between staff from central and local offices. Complicating 

this is the fact that these programs generally are managed separately, sometimes in different units 

of a single agency, and in some cases, in units in more than one agency. In addition, the local 

offices that provide services to WPRS claimants report to one manager, and the central office 

units that provide overall guidance and operate the profiling model report to another manager. 

In our visits to the SIG states, some staff mentioned that there was tension among these 

various actors. Some of that tension reflects differences in the missions of the various agencies 

and programs, some reflects the fact that there is no separate funding stream for WPRS 

operations, and some reflects the fact that one program may be the lead WPRS program, while 

the other programs treat WPRS as of secondary importance. Tension can undermine efforts to 

ensure that WPRS polices are implemented consistently and comprehensively. 

Several SIG states tried to improve coordination across agencies and offices. The data 

system enhancements discussed earlier in this chapter are designed partly to improve 

coordination, as are the cross-office training sessions discussed in Chapter III; however, they 
104

were often also intended primarily to standardize the delivery of WPRS services, particularly 

orientation and job search workshops. 

Alaska was one of the states that conducted cross-office sessions to standardize the delivery 

of services and to facilitate sharing of materials; but the state also viewed the sessions as an 

opportunity to build relationships among local office staff from different agencies. Staff from 

several agencies participated in the two statewide conferences held by the state and in monthly 

teleconferences. For example, staff from Vocational Rehabilitation gave case management 

training at one of the conferences, and Veterans Administration staff were included in order to 

assume case management responsibility for veterans in WPRS. Staff from Trade Adjustment 

Assistance, WIA, and the state’s own job training program (State Training and Employment 

Program) made presentations to increase staff awareness of these programs, thereby increasing 

referrals of profiled claimants. In addition to the conferences, Alaska’s WPRS coordinator 

visited all local offices during the SIG grant period, to help with front-line program staff in 

developing relationships among staff and reinforcing the standardization goals of the 

conferences. 

One SIG state, South Carolina, used part of its grant to improve communication and 

coordination between the central office and the local offices. They created two new field 

coordinator positions to act as liaisons between the central office and the local offices and to help 

local offices manage their workloads, address program issues, and monitor local office 

procedures. The coordinators made technical assistance visits to the local offices and provided 

guidance on procedures (such as for selecting and exempting profiled claimants), requirements 

for reemployment workshops, eligibility reviews, and ongoing reemployment services. Over the 

course of the grant period, they shifted from frequent in-person visits to local offices to contact 
105

by telephone. Prior to the SIG, this type of technical assistance was not provided consistently or 

adequately to local offices. 

107

V. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY 

The 11 Significant Improvement Grant (SIG) states used their grant money in a wide variety 

of ways to improve their Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) systems. The 

approaches states took reflected their assessments of the weaknesses in their profiling and 

service delivery system, available resources to accomplish the proposed improvements, and 

possibly even broader, systemwide objectives. Some activities were one-time investments to 

make structural improvements in how the WPRS system operated; others, such as adding staff to 

underserved areas, temporarily addressed problems that required changes broader than the SIG 

funds could accomplish. Because each state planned different activities and faced different 

implementation challenges, the SIG experience of each state is unique. 

In this chapter, we draw conclusions about the experiences of the SIG states in revising their 

WPRS systems and suggest implications for policy. In Section A, we summarize whether states 

accomplished their original objectives and why they may have deviated from their plans.1

 When 

several states attempted similar activities, we examine cross-state experiences to assess how 

specific features of WPRS systems and the proposed SIG activities help to explain the 

differences and similarities found in implementation experiences and outcomes achieved across 

the 11 SIG states. We also identify areas in which additional effort may be needed to strengthen 

the WPRS system. In Section B, we discuss ways in which the information we obtained during 

our in-depth analysis of the SIG states can provide insights on the operations of WPRS systems 

nationally, the strengths and weaknesses of these systems, and potential trade-offs in achieving 

 1

Appendix B provides brief descriptions of SIG activities that were highly successful or 

innovative, as well as contact information for a state staff person who can provide more details 

on the implementation process. 
108

WPRS goals. Finally in Section C, we identify patterns across states as they implemented WIA 

and integrated WPRS activities in their one-stop environments. 

A. IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES 

In this section, we review states’ SIG goals and document whether states were successful in 

their efforts. Because of the breadth of activities that states undertook, we categorize the 

activities into three groups: (1) the profiling model and claimant selection, (2) service delivery, 

and (3) data systems and operational linkages. We also categorize the degree to which states 

implemented their plans as (1) full [I], (2) partial [P], and (3) no implementation [N]. Because of 

the complexity of states’ activities, this single metric of implementation outcomes is inherently 

subjective. We therefore provide brief notes to accompany our assessment of the states’ 

outcomes, and we refer the reader to the earlier chapters for more detail.2

Throughout this discussion, it is important to remember several points, particularly for states 

that did not achieve full implementation of their SIG activities. First, most SIG activities are not, 

in fact, directly comparable across states. Some states chose very ambitious activities, which 

may be inherently more complicated and difficult to implement than those of other states, even 

when they appear similar at first glance. 

Second, states may have gathered additional information in the midst of their efforts and 

reassessed their proposed course of action. In some instances, changes required approval from 

the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and a modification to the conditions of the grant; states that 

requested and received this approval may have been responding to information that was not 

 2

Appendix A discusses an analysis of the effects of SIG activities on quantitative outcomes 

such as UI durations, exhaustion rates, and receipt of reemployment services. This analysis is 

limited because of the data that are available and the influence of other factors, such as changes 

in the economy over time, on outcomes. 
109

realistically available at the time their SIG proposal was written. From a policy perspective, 

adapting to this new information is more appropriate than pursuing a strategy exclusively for the 

sake of completing a proposed task. Therefore, measures of whether or not a state achieved its 

originally proposed goals may not be as useful as a broad-based assessment of whether the SIG 

funds were used to improve the WPRS system. 

Third, because of logistical or operational challenges, a state may have been unable to 

achieve an outcome during the SIG period, but it may still realistically expect to accomplish that 

goal in the future. Both new information about the appropriateness of a goal and barriers to 

achieving one or more parts of it may have led a state to modify its original plans. 

Ultimately, we are confident that information about which SIG activities were most likely to 

be accomplished, why states revised some of their plans, and why they may have been unable to 

accomplish their goals can inform federal and state decision making. The lessons learned by SIG 

states that encountered operational or logistical barriers and adapted their objectives to respond 

to new information can provide insights for other states that are considering similar 

improvements to their WPRS systems. 

1. The Profiling Model and Claimant Selection 

As was documented in Chapter II, SIG activities to improve the model to identify and select 

claimants better can be grouped into three categories: (1) changing the timing of call-ins of 

claimants at high risk of benefit exhaustion for services, (2) expanding the pool of WPRS 

eligibles, and (3) improving the claimant selection process (Table V.1). 
TABLE V.1 

IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE THE PROFILING MODEL 

State Activity Outcomea Notes 

South Carolina Conduct profiling after the initial claim I Revised the way that claimants were sorted on the call-in lists to 

minimize confusion caused by the call-in of claimants not eligible for benefits 

Minnesota Conduct profiling after the initial claim I Implemented in spring 2001 Alaska Conduct profiling after the initial claim N Decided not to implement switch to profiling at initial claim because 

of concerns about staff workloads and potential problems handling claimants in denial periods 

North Carolina Provide intensive services to workers in the 

textile, apparel, and tobacco industries 

I Designed a system that is independent of WPRS 

Washington Include additional initial claimants in the 

selection pool 

N Efforts were suspended because of increased workloads and space 

constraints in local offices, and the development of procedures to solicit claimants to participate voluntarily in reemployment services 

Louisiana Improve the accuracy of the profiling model I Implemented new model at the end of March 2000 West Virginia Improve the accuracy of the profiling model I Implemented in August 2001, shortly after the SIG period ended Alaska Increase accuracy of selection and referrals of 

WPRS-eligible claimants 

I Implementation began early in the SIG—in fall 1999. Began with 

training for UI Call Center staff, and later with data system checks 

Alaska Improve the accuracy of the profiling model I Implemented updated model and improved system for updating model 

in spring 2001 

Maryland Improve the accuracy of the profiling model P Updated the model but did not change its specification New York Improve the accuracy of the profiling model P Identified a preferred model but did not implement it during the grant 

period 

Wisconsin Improve the accuracy of the profiling model P Identified important changes to the model but did not implement all 

of them 

South Carolina Improve the accuracy of the profiling model N Chose not to develop substate profiling models, because of a lack of 

statistical variation across the state 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. a “I” indicates full implementation. “P” indicates partial implementation. “N” indicates no implementation. 

110 
111

a. Changing the Timing of Call-Ins of Claimants at High Risk of Benefit Exhaustion for 

Services 

A goal of changing profiling from at first payment to at initial claim is to provide services to 

likely exhaustees earlier in their UI claim periods. From the experiences of the SIG states, we 

conclude that profiling at initial claim is usually technically feasible and can accomplish its goal 

of earlier intervention. Two of the three states that had proposed to make this switch (Minnesota 

and South Carolina) did so and were generally satisfied that they had become better able to meet 

the goal of earlier provision of services. In contrast, because of difficulties in determining how 

to deal with claimants in denial periods and the potential for greatly increased staff workloads, 

Alaska decided against switching to profiling at initial claim.3

 However, if Alaska had 

implemented initial-claim profiling the way Minnesota did, it may have been able to address 

some of its concerns about how claimants in denial periods would be handled. Minnesota now 

places claimants with nonmonetary eligibility issues in a separate file from which they either join 

the selection pool when they achieve eligibility or become excluded after a certain period. 

However, states have mixed views on whether profiling at initial claim or at first payment is 

the better policy overall. Alaska’s concerns about staff workloads were not unique, because the 

switch to initial-claim profiling may affect operational procedures and the ability to achieve 

other WPRS goals. For example, South Carolina encountered severe logistical problems caused 

by increased workloads and claimants’ confusion about their eligibility for benefits. In addition, 

Washington is considering reversing its pre-SIG implementation of initial-claim profiling 

because of the increased workloads and reduced targeting on likely UI exhaustees. (See Section 

 3

Alaska claimants who quit or were discharged from their work can collect benefits after a 

six-week denial period. 
112

B.3 for further discussion of how the timing of profiling affects the UI trust fund and the 

targeting of reemployment services on high-risk claimants.) 

b. Expanding the Pool of WPRS Eligibles 

Several states expanded the pool of claimants who could receive WPRS services. 

Minnesota included claimants with potential durations of under 26 weeks, but this effort was not 

officially part of its SIG activities. Though the change complicated the model and increased the 

number of claimants on the call-in lists, it is likely in some ways to make Minnesota’s WPRS 

system more like those of other states that historically have not excluded claimants with short 

potential durations. Louisiana and West Virginia reduced the threshold for serving claimants, 

which would lead to an increase in the number of claimants who could receive services from 

offices with the capacity to serve more. These changes were fairly straightforward to implement. 

Washington also attempted to include in the WPRS process claimants who previously had 

been excluded. In many ways, Washington’s plan to include claimants who file additional initial 

claims was extremely ambitious. Mechanisms to distinguish between additional and new initial 

claims and to calculate scores accordingly would have to be developed. Existing services might 

have to be modified or new ones designed to meet the unique needs of this group of claimants. 

Staff would need to determine priorities for serving new initial and additional claimants. In 

addition to these operational challenges, the state also faced concerns about the capacity of 

offices to serve these claimants, especially when the economy is weak and as different programs 

compete for space in one-stops. 

A goal of Washington’s efforts was, in the hopes of reducing UI benefit durations, to allow 

local offices to have more than one opportunity to invite claimants to participate in 

reemployment services. In the end, Washington was able to develop a simple alternative 
113

solution to address some of the concerns of local office staff. Now given lists of all claimants, 

including additional initial claimants, these offices may solicit claimants to participate 

voluntarily in reemployment services. Thus, local office staff may strive to decrease the amount 

of benefits that these claimants receive, without the state’s having to develop or modify a system 

to serve them. 

c. Improving the Claimant Selection Process 

Most states were able to update their profiling models, in large part because a single 

organization (usually, the UI agency) had the capacity to download and analyze the data and to 

implement changes. The states were also generally able to use the SIG to make future updates 

easier. The efforts to make future updates easier are likely to have long-term impacts by saving 

staff time in reestimating the model or implementing changes, or facilitating more frequent 

updates, so that claimants with the highest risk of benefit exhaustion are directed to 

reemployment services. However, as discussed more fully in Chapter II, some states had 

difficulty implementing a new model even when they officially “completed” the task. States 

were challenged in understanding how best to specify their models and correctly implement 

diagnostics tests. States that strive to improve their models may benefit from DOL assistance for 

the task. 

Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin were unable to implement model changes within the 

SIG period. New York and Wisconsin identified an appropriate way to update the model but, 

because of programming constraints, could not do so in the allotted time. Likewise, Maryland 

encountered programming challenges that hindered its ability to add new variables to its model. 

However, these states are still optimistic about implementing model updates in the future. 
114

South Carolina’s plans to implement substate profiling models serves as a good example of 

responding to additional information gained through investigation early in the two-year SIG 

period. According to its SIG proposal, this state planned to develop substate models because 

staff had heard how a nearby state had improved the accuracy of its model. Upon further 

investigation, however, South Carolina decided that using substate models would not improve its 

ability to identify high-risk claimants. Although one type of model design may work well for 

one state, it may not be appropriate for another state, especially with the potential additional 

complexity in implementing and maintaining the changes. 

2. Service Delivery 

Every SIG state used at least some of its funds to improve reemployment services by, for 

example, (1) improving the workshop content or style and conducting related staff training, 

(2) strengthening the assessment process, (3) enhancing follow-up activities, (4) facilitating use 

of self-access resources by training claimants on how to use computers in the resource room or 

by increasing computer access, and (5) boosting service capacity. Many of these tasks are 

designed primarily to improve the quality or quantity of services delivered to claimants. States 

typically revised their workshops to describe new opportunities to access information (such as 

through the Internet) and services through the one-stop system and to emphasize experiential 

learning (such as through group exercises) so that claimants are more engaged in information 

sharing and skills development. Periodic updates to the workshops and assessments, as was done 

by many of the SIG states, are likely to provide ongoing beneficial effects on the quality of the 

services provided. Similarly, the investments in new software or equipment that some states 

made to expand one-stops’ computerized resources are likely to benefit claimants and other onestop customers beyond the two-year SIG period. 
115

SIG states generally were able to achieve their proposed changes in service delivery (Table 

V.2). Once again, the ability of staff to control the resources needed to make these 

improvements probably played a key part. Central office staff who were directing the SIG 

efforts typically either had authority to implement changes and train local office staff about them 

or had well-established procedures to work with other staff who did have the authority. 

Although we could not ascertain the effects of these changes on claimant outcomes, most central 

and local staff expected the changes to help claimants with their job searches. 

Although most states completed some or all of their proposed tasks, certain constraints may 

have prevented implementation to fullest potential. For example, though South Carolina was 

able to define its reemployment service objectives better throughout the UI claim spell, it 

encountered difficulties implementing this intensive service strategy without increased resources. 

Minnesota’s implementation of its assessment took longer than the two-year grant period, 

because its design was based on analysis of data collected on a sample of claimants selected 

early in the SIG period and followed through their benefit years. 

Both California and Washington encountered implementation challenges as central office 

staff learned more about the priorities and perspectives of local office staff. For example 

California successfully developed and pilot-tested an Internet module to be included in its 

orientation workshop. However, the state’s evaluators found widespread variation in how local 

office staff taught it, concluding that the integrity with which the workshop leaders presented the 

material was determined by their expertise and comfort level with the Internet. Efforts to train 

staff on new technology and computer software may need to be more comprehensive to ensure 

that claimants receive the appropriate information. In the early part of the grant period, 

Washington developed an electronic assessment tool, but central office staff found that local 

office staff preferred to use a paper version as marketing for workshops. As a result, the planned
TABLE V.2 

IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE SERVICE DELIVERY 

State Activity Outcomea Notes 

Louisiana Improve training and materials for workshop facilitators I New materials developed and distributed at regional trainings in fall 

2000 

Maryland Develop and implement a new job search workshop 

manual 

I A draft was developed by September 2000, tested in seven pilot 

offices, revised, and then implemented in all offices in May 2001 

South Carolina 

Increase frontline WPRS staff training I Conducted training sessions for WPRS staff early in the SIG period 

Wisconsin Improve the breadth and content of reemployment 

services 

I Staff in local offices receiving SIG funds updated existing 

workshops and developed new ones 

New York Conduct training sessions of WPRS providers in local 

offices 

I Conducted at the end of the grant period, in May and June 2001 

Alaska Increase materials and resources for claimants and 

facilitators 

I Distributed the material in spring 2001. This activity was a 

modification to SIG plans and was done in place of a data system linkage with job training 

Minnesota Develop a comprehensive assessment tool P The assessment tool was designed but not implemented by end of the 

grant period 

Washington Develop a new assessment tool P The assessment tool is handed out during orientation workshops but 

the data are not electronically entered 

New York Distribute career exploration tools I Distributed to local offices in spring 2001, by the end of the grant 

period 

South Carolina 

Provide more defined reemployment service objectives I Developed framework for services throughout claim spell but 

focused efforts on the period early in claim spells 

South Carolina 

Strengthen follow-up services I Provided SIG-funded caseworkers to work with a subgroup of 

claimants with high WPRS scores 

North Carolina 

Provide intensive services to workers in the textile, apparel, and tobacco industries 

I Provided claimants in these industries with an orientation session, a 

job search workshop, and meetings with staff members throughout the claim spell to discuss their job search activities and to receive job referrals and job development 

116 
TABLE V.2 (continued) 

117 

State Activity Outcomea Notes Wisconsin Implement follow-up efforts I Implemented, in two local offices, follow-up calls to remind 

claimants of reemployment services. Decided to discontinue these efforts after the SIG period 

California Develop an Internet module for orientation workshop I Integrity to module varied across 12 pilot sites Louisiana Increase computer-based resources for profiled claimants I Around December 2000, many offices in the state received 

computers and printers for Internet access 

Louisiana Increase use of America’s Job Bank (AJB) I Developed and distributed a CD on using AJB to local offices; 

unclear if this is being used 

Wisconsin Increase number of claimants receiving WPRS services I Provided SIG-funded staff in areas that have been historically

underserved 

West Virginia 

Increase number of claimants receiving WPRS services I Provided SIG-funded staff in areas that have been historically 

underserved 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. a“I” indicates full implementation. “P” indicates partial implementation. “N” indicates no implementation. 
118

automation and data-capturing capabilities were not implemented. Both states benefited from 

observing how local office staff used the SIG-funded changes during a pilot-testing period, 

before the states tried statewide implementation of the proposed changes. 

3. Data Systems 

Several states intended to use grant money to improve WPRS data linkages and tracking 

systems, as well as overall coordination between WPRS partners (Table V.3). The impetus for 

these improvements came from a desire both to improve their systems based on experience and 

to respond to changes in reemployment service delivery resulting from remote initial claims 

(RIC) filing and Workforce Investment Act (WIA) implementation. These types of activities 

often were designed to (1) save staff time by avoiding duplicate data entry; (2) encourage 

standardization and consistency in WPRS procedures, including linkages between offices and 

agencies; and (3) improve policy/management decision making through use of performance 

measures or other data analysis. 

The states that were most likely to succeed in improving interagency coordination either 

controlled the resources to implement the changes or were able to offer benefits to the other 

agencies with whom a good working relationship was necessary. For example, Alaska and South 

Carolina were able to strengthen coordination between the central and local offices through the 

provision of information-sharing opportunities (in Alaska’s case, teleconferences involving many 

staff; in South Carolina’s case, staff whose jobs were to provide technical assistance and 

feedback to local office staff). 

More common, however, was that difficulties in implementing data system changes arose 

because WPRS operates as part of a broader program environment. Four states (Maryland, 

Minnesota, New York, and Washington) made a list of ways to improve tracking systems but,
TABLE V.3 

IMPLEMENTATION OUTCOMES OF SIG ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE DATA SYSTEMS AND OPERATIONAL LINKAGES 

State Activity Outcomea Notes 

Alaska Clarify responsibilities and procedures for claimants 

who do not show up for WPRS reemployment services 

I Implementation began early in the SIG—in fall 1999. Began with 

training for UI Call Center staff, and then later with data system changes 

Alaska Coordinate within and across programs I Conducted teleconferences and yearly workshops starting in fall 1999. 

The teleconferences will continue post-SIG 

Alaska Improve tracking and outcomes information I Completed in spring 2001, just before the end of the grant period Louisiana Redesign existing and create new data reports I Implemented by December 2000 Maryland Improve tracking and scheduling system P Implemented part of new system; some features waiting until one-stop 

system developed 

Minnesota Improve communication between call centers and 

local offices 

I Developed and implemented a standard form that can be e-mailed to call 

centers when a claimant does not participate in WPRS services 

South Carolina 

Develop better tracking systems I Created several reports to be used to identify claimants who need 

follow-up services 

South Carolina 

Implement regular field monitoring and tech assistance 

I Provided two field coordinators during the SIG period 

West Virginia Identify and correct problems in the WPRS reporting 

process 

I Corrected data problems with the 9048 and 9049 reports 

Minnesota Develop data transfer capabilities between UI and ES 

databases 

P Some data are now moved from the UI system to the JS system, but JS 

data are not transferred back to UI, because of confidentiality concerns and because JS customers are not required to give their social security numbers 

New York Identify data system improvements P Identified needed improvements, but most of them were not 

implemented 

Washington Integrate data systems P SIG plans were part of an ongoing effort begun prior to the SIG and 

expected to continue afterwards 

Washington Develop an Internet-based scheduling system P System requirements developed under SIG will be implemented as part 

of broader changes to one-stop operating system 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. a“I” indicates full implementation. “P” indicates partial implementation. “N” indicates no implementation. 

119 
120

because the WPRS computer systems are part of a larger system that is undergoing changes over 

several years, decided against implementing at least one piece of the improvements. 

Both DOL (when funding initiatives) and states (when considering improvements) may want 

to decide whether it is worthwhile to make temporary “patches” to a system that is to be replaced 

in a few years. Whether or not a state should proceed with changes will depend on, among other 

things, the importance of the planned improvement, the cost of making the changes, the degree to 

which the effort will be transferable, and the schedule for implementation of the new system. 

Because of the magnitude and complexity of one-stop computer systems, it is unlikely that staff 

designing WPRS system improvements will be able to play a major role in setting the schedule 

or many of the parameters for the system overhaul. The SIG states that delayed or decided 

against making planned improvements expected to be able to use their SIG activities as part of 

larger modification efforts, but states should try to avoid duplicating efforts or expending 

resources on the planning of modifications that are unlikely to be implemented quickly. 

B. INFERENCES ABOUT WPRS SYSTEMS NATIONWIDE 

Because the 11 SIG states applied for and were granted funds to improve their 

reemployment service systems, they are not a random sample of states nationwide. In addition, 

these systems were in flux during our observation period, because of both the SIG efforts and 

other changes to the UI and reemployment service systems. However, many of the changes the 

11 SIG states underwent during the two-year SIG period are similar to those that other states 

have encountered or will encounter as they update their WPRS systems to reflect the changing 

needs of claimants and the UI and reemployment service environments. 

Collectively, therefore, these states represent a range of different strategies for operating 

WPRS systems, and their systems are probably typical of those of other states. To this extent, 

our in-depth analysis of the experiences of the SIG states can be used to identify several broad 
121

patterns about WPRS systems nationwide. These states can serve as examples for policymakers 

to draw general lessons about the spectrum of WPRS activities, likely strengths and weaknesses, 

and promising practices. 

In this section, we discuss key components of WPRS and how patterns found across the SIG 

states describe challenges that states face implementing WPRS objectives. We also discuss the 

trade-offs states must make as they strive to meet different WPRS objectives. Where 

appropriate, we provide insights about how recent changes in the UI and reemployment service 

delivery system may affect WPRS. 

1. Components and Goals of WPRS Systems 

A well-designed WPRS system is expected to have several characteristics: 

• Intervention Early in the UI Claim Spell. Intuitively, if claimants need or can 

benefit from reemployment services, then providing these services as early as 

possible in their UI spells should help them use their time most effectively when 

searching for a job. 

• Accurate Identification and Selection of Claimants Most at Risk of Benefit 

Exhaustion. WPRS targeting of services is based on the assumption that local offices 

and one-stops generally are not able to serve all claimants and other job seekers who 

could benefit from reemployment services. 

• Appropriate Referrals to Individualized, Intensive Reemployment Assistance 

Services. All else equal, claimants who receive more services will have better UI and 

employment outcomes. The more intensive and individualized the services, the larger 

the expected benefit. Ideally, these services should be provided in a way that fosters 

a cooperative relationship between the claimants and the service providers. 

• Comprehensive Tracking and Enforcement of Claimants’ Involvement in These 

Services. To ensure maximum benefit from the service referrals, claimants are 

required to participate in services, and states are instructed to enforce this 

requirement. 
122

A strong and effective WPRS system also must rely on coordination between the agencies 

that administer the UI, Job Service (JS), and WIA programs, because they serve a common set of 

customers. As discussed in Chapter IV, these linkages include the UI agencies’ referral of 

claimants to services, service providers’ notification of the UI agencies as to whether or not 

claimants have completed the services, and the sharing of data so that all agencies involved in 

WPRS can measure outcomes effectively and provide feedback on ways to improve the program. 

Properly designed and implemented WPRS systems are expected to achieve several 

interrelated and complementary goals. Because claimants who are at the highest risk of benefit 

exhaustion are receiving appropriate reemployment services, they are expected to have lower UI 

exhaustion rates and UI durations and better reemployment outcomes than they would 

otherwise.4 As a result of this targeting of resources to claimants who can most benefit, UI trust 

fund expenditures also are expected to decrease. 

2. Patterns of States in Providing Key WPRS Components 

In this section, we discuss several ways in which our observations of the status of WPRS 

systems in the SIG states suggest that states nationwide may not be successful achieving all the 

key characteristics of a well-designed WPRS system. When possible, we also highlight 

promising practices that one or more states may have developed to address a weakness common 

to WPRS systems. 

 4

The WPRS Evaluation found that the better services are targeted toward claimants at high 

risk of exhaustion, the larger their effect on UI durations and exhaustion rates (U.S. Department 

of Labor 1999b). As discussed in Chapter II, WPRS models do, to some extent, correctly target 

claimants, but the accuracy of predictions from these models is inherently limited. Thus, 

improved accuracy of WPRS models may benefit high-risk claimants and reduce trust fund 

expenditures. 
123

a. States May Not Have Proper Allocations of Resources Across Geographic Regions to 

Serve the Highest-Risk Claimants 

Distributional issues within a state may prevent some offices from targeting services to 

claimants with the highest profiling scores, even when the WPRS model identifies those 

claimants as most in need. Most SIG states expressed some difficulty reallocating resources to 

areas with high need so that the supply of services could be geographically distributed the same 

way as the demand, and non-SIG states probably face similar challenges in ensuring that 

reemployment service resources are best allocated to meet the needs of high-risk claimants.5

 

Because of historical patterns in funding allocations across regions within a state, or as a result of 

political considerations, these resource misallocations may occur whether the economy is strong 

or weak. The same factors may limit a state’s ability to correct them. Ultimately, however, 

these misallocations may prevent some claimants from receiving services in one part of the state 

even when their needs are greater than those of claimants who receive services in other parts. 

Temporary supplemental funds, such as the SIGs, can supplement other funding sources by 

adding flexibility to how the state directs reemployment services to clients who need them most. 

South Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin hired staff to provide WPRS services in specific 

offices with historically low WPRS participation rates.6 Over time, these states can reevaluate 

whether these areas still have low WPRS participation rates and whether continuing to target 

additional resources to them is appropriate (when funds are available). 

 5

About 60 percent of WPRS coordinators reported in the WPRS Evaluation that they have 

procedures to change the number of profiled and referred claimants served in local areas (U.S. 

Department of Labor 1999b). This is related to, but not the same as, the ability to reallocate 

resources across areas. Discussions with staff during the SIG site visits suggested that this 

flexibility was often limited. 

6

The South Carolina SIG-funded staff worked with a subset of the highest-scoring claimants 

who were required to participate in WPRS activities to ensure their receipt of intensive services. 
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When misallocations arise from unpredictable, temporary fluctuations in the demand for 

services over time and across areas (such as when local areas experience mass layoffs), use of a 

temporary funding stream can facilitate the mobility of resources. North Carolina used SIG 

funds to hire staff in offices that were experiencing layoffs in specific industries. Taking 

advantage of the flexibility of these funds and frequently reevaluating where they should go may 

facilitate even better resource allocation than targeting funds to specific areas. 

A concern in relying on funding streams such as the SIGs to address misallocations in the 

availability of services is that they may provide only a short-term solution for a problem. A 

temporary funding stream provides an immediate correction, but the misallocation will probably 

remain when the funding stream no longer exists. States can use attrition or other means to help 

correct historical misallocations over time, but these processes are slow and cannot correct 

misallocations due to unpredictable fluctuations in the demand for services. 

DOL has provided other funding to states to use in a flexible way. For example, WIA 

dislocated-worker funds allow states to direct services toward dislocated workers who are 

underserved, as do the reemployment services grants provided to all states in 2001-2002.7 States 

could benefit further from having a continuous, flexible funding stream dedicated to the WPRS 

program so they can direct resources toward areas temporarily or historically underserved. 

b. States May Not Be Providing Intensive and Individualized Services, Coupled with 

Enforcement, as Envisioned for WPRS 

The WPRS Evaluation found that in four of the six states studied, WPRS significantly 

reduced UI benefit receipt, and in three states, exhaustion rates declined (U.S. Department of 

 7

Although a recent General Accounting Office report cited problems with the dislocatedworker funding formula, these problems do not affect the conclusion that states can benefit from 

this type of flexible funding stream to help close the gaps between the demand and supply of 

services across geographic regions in a state (U.S. General Accounting Office 2002). 
125

Labor 1999b).8,9 The three with the largest impacts of WPRS on receipt of services also had the 

largest impacts on UI benefits receipt, and customers were happier when services were intensive. 

Importantly, the services observed during the WPRS Evaluation were neither as intensive 

nor as individualized as those envisioned for WPRS. The evaluation found that only 14 percent 

of states required WPRS claimants to participate in both a large number of services (seven or 

more) and somewhat long ones (more than 10 hours). Thirty-one percent of states offered a 

large number of services and extensive resource centers but did not require participation. In 

contrast, 55 percent of states neither required nor offered extensive services for WPRS claimants. 

In light of this finding, the WPRS Policy Workgroup recommended in 1999 that service intensity 

be increased and that states provide services tailored to individual needs to yield further benefits 

to claimants and the UI trust funds (Wandner and Messenger 1999). 

Despite this recommendation, the services we observed in most SIG states were generally 

similar in intensity to those observed in the WPRS Evaluation (U.S. Department of Labor 

1999b). Although the types of services offered may vary across local offices within a state and 

in accordance with variations over time in WPRS workloads, most states used one of two 

strategies for providing services. The first included intensive services, which were minimally 

individualized. States that used this strategy, such as Louisiana and Maryland, required all 

WPRS claimants to participate in an in-depth workshop that provided advice on a wide range of 

 8

Mixed results were found for a fifth state, which had small reductions in the weeks of UI 

receipt but a large impact on the probability of benefit exhaustion. A sixth state had no estimated 

impact of WPRS on outcomes. 

9

Other research, conducted in the 1980s, supports the view that intensive services to improve 

job search, coupled with enforcement of the requirements, reduce UI benefit receipt (Meyer 

1995). However, the WPRS Evaluation (and most other studies that examined the effects of 

intensive job search workshops on earnings) have not detected increases in post-UI earnings 

resulting from receipt of services (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b and 1998). 
126

job search strategies and lasted up to 10 hours. The second strategy included individualized 

services, but they were not as likely to be intensive. States that used this strategy required 

WPRS-mandated claimants to participate in a brief orientation that covered the availability of 

services and possibly contained an introduction to job search strategies. The orientations that 

focused almost exclusively on the availability of services typically lasted less than one hour. 

Orientations that contained tips on job search strategies often lasted two or three hours. Some 

states required a follow-up service, possibly selected by the claimants themselves and usually of 

short duration and low intensity. Other states required no follow-up services. 

When states provided claimants with information about available services, we observed 

reluctance by both central office and local office staff to assign and enforce participation in 

follow-up services on the basis of potentially subjective assessments of a claimant’s need, 

conducted during or shortly after the initial orientation.10 Staff felt comfortable requiring 

claimants with high profiling scores to participate in a WPRS orientation workshop, while not 

requiring claimants with lower scores to do so. This may be because WPRS profiling models are 

designed to distinguish between claimants who need services more and those who need them 

less; these models provide a summary statistic (the profiling score) to rank claimants according 

to their overall need for WPRS services. 

However, the models cannot currently aid in identifying the types of follow-up activities that 

are most appropriate for a claimant. To determine a claimant’s need for follow-up services, staff 

may have to rely on how good they personally perceive the quality of a claimant’s resume to be, 

how realistic a claimant’s job expectations are, and how knowledgeable a claimant is about the 

 10Yet, in a survey as part of the WPRS Evaluation (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b), threequarters or more of UI, JS, and Economic Dislocation and Worker Adjustment Assistance 

(EDWAA) state administrators reported favoring requiring claimants to participate in services. 
127

local labor market.11 For example, staff may strongly encourage (or in rare cases require) a 

claimant who has no resume but is searching for a job that requires one to attend a resumewriting workshop. However, staff generally are less likely to mandate participation in a resumewriting workshop by a claimant who has a resume but could benefit from suggestions on how to 

improve it. Thus, the WPRS model of mandatory, intensive, and individualized services may be 

difficult to achieve unless central and local office staff feel more comfortable using assessments 

to impose individualized participation requirements in follow-up activities.12

c. States Varied in the Strength of Their Operational Linkages Between Agencies 

The WPRS Evaluation found that operational linkages between the UI and JS programs 

were strong in many states, but linkages with Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) and other 

reemployment service agencies were less well developed (U.S. Department of Labor 1999b). In 

addition, some states had difficulties overcoming differences in missions among potential WPRS 

partners and understanding and accommodating differing program requirements and data 

systems, which could hinder the efficient delivery of services to high-risk claimants. As a result, 

 11As noted above, some states require participation in a follow-up service that the claimant 

picks from a list of available services. It is unclear how much the claimants’ selections are based 

on their self-assessment of their needs, their desire to fulfill the requirement as quickly or 

effortlessly as possible, or other factors. 

12Washington’s post-SIG efforts to develop a scoring system to distinguish between 

claimants who need WIA self-serve, core, or intensive services may be a step in the right 

direction, although these services would still be voluntary. The goal is to provide a high level of 

statistical sorting so that service receipt is more individualized. Likened to an electronic 

reemployment plan, which would identify claimants for intensive services, this system would 

provide more than one dimension of a summary statistic. Nevertheless, it is still too early to 

assess how useful and accurate this system may be in distinguishing relative levels of need 

between claimants, since this system is in the design phase and will not be evaluated until 2003. 

In addition, it is unclear whether it will aid in identifying the most appropriate services for 

claimants. 
128

the WPRS Policy Workgroup recommended that operational linkages be strengthened to ensure 

effective and efficient coordination of WPRS activities (Wandner and Messenger 1999). 

In the SIG Evaluation, we also observed states that varied widely in their coordination 

between these agencies. Louisiana serves as an example of strong linkages: staff from several 

different programs meet regularly to address WPRS policies and procedures. In several other 

instances, however, state-level staff involved in the SIG activities commented that the WPRS 

program is perceived to be run primarily by only one agency (usually either UI or ES).13 It may 

be that WPRS tasks and authority were divided among agencies when the system was designed 

(in the mid-1990s). However, in some instances, one or more agencies within a state may have 

failed to become involved in the continual efforts needed to update and improve the system to 

ensure that potential UI exhaustees are correctly identified, referred to services, and tracked to 

ensure that their service needs are being met. This challenge may be exacerbated by the lack of a 

separate WPRS funding stream. 

For more effective WPRS programs, states may need to exert deliberate effort to strengthen 

their linkages between the UI, JS, WIA, and other programs that serve claimants identified 

through the WPRS system as likely exhaustees. Alaska’s SIG-funded efforts to improve crossagency coordination and information sharing at both the central and the local office levels may 

serve as a good example for other states. Alaska conducted statewide conferences and monthly 

teleconferences to help increase staff awareness of other programs and facilitated the 

development of cross-program linkages at the local level. Although the degree to which these 

 13Staff we spoke with usually reported that their agency took responsibility for the program, 

but that at least one other agency viewed WPRS as of secondary importance. However, two 

things should be kept in mind. First, these staff applied for and received the SIG specifically to 

improve the WPRS system. Second, our data collection efforts involved discussions primarily 

about SIG activities and not the parts of WPRS that were unaffected by the grant. 
129

efforts have translated into improved claimant outcomes is currently unclear, this type of 

coordination and information sharing has the potential to enhance service receipt and customer 

satisfaction if claimant outcomes are kept as a priority. 

d. Some States Were Developing Non-WPRS Orientation Workshops to Introduce 

Claimants to Services and Considering How to Integrate Them with WPRS 

Some policymakers have been concerned that RIC filing may reduce the likelihood that 

claimants will go voluntarily to JS—because claimants are not already there and because call 

center workers are unlikely to be familiar with reemployment services and to refer people to 

them systematically (U.S. Department of Labor 2000). Some local office staff in the SIG states 

expressed similar views: that because of the move of UI staff from local offices to call centers, 

UI claimants were less likely to go to the offices and receive services.14 

The WPRS system has been viewed as one mechanism to counteract reduced familiarity 

with and use of reemployment services, since WPRS requires some claimants to come into a 

local office early in their spells and learn about them. Requiring WPRS participation may be 

even more important in states that use RIC filing than states that continue using in-person filing. 

However, claimants who are not in the WPRS-mandated group still may not systematically be 

made aware of and offered services. 

Some states have begun developing procedures to counteract the trend toward decreased 

awareness of and participation in JS. Maryland, New York, and North Carolina inform most or 

all non-job-attached claimants of services by requiring them to participate in orientation 

workshops independent of WPRS. These SIG states were investigating ways either to integrate 

 14However, the UI Exhaustees Study found similar declines between 1988 and 1998 in rates 

of going to JS in states that implemented RIC filing and those that did not, which suggests that 

other factors may have been responsible for the change in service usage rates (Needels et al. 

2001). 
130

this workshop with the WPRS-mandated orientation workshop for selected claimants or to 

ensure that the information presented was not redundant. Alaska took a different approach: it is 

placing JS staff in each UI call center to act as liaisons between the UI and JS programs and to 

aid in referrals for reemployment services. However, these states generally have not had enough 

experience with these new systems to have been able to refine them and offer lessons about the 

most efficient use of staff’s and claimants’ time. 

3. Trade-Offs in Designing WPRS Systems 

Even when a state’s WPRS system contains all the key characteristics listed earlier, state 

policymakers have considerable flexibility in designing the system to achieve its program goals. 

In some instances, trade-offs require that one goal be achieved at the expense of another. A state 

implicitly, or even unintentionally, may place a higher priority on one goal than another in the 

way that it designs its WPRS system. Therefore, a strategy that is appropriate for one state may 

not be so for another that prioritizes its WPRS goals differently. In this section, we discuss two 

ways in which states may encounter trade-offs in designing or modifying their WPRS systems. 

a. Changing Profiling from at First Payment to at Initial Claim May Influence the Ability 

of a State to Target Services and Decrease Trust Fund Expenditures 

As discussed in Section A, changing profiling from at first payment to at initial claim is 

likely to improve a state’s ability to provide services earlier in claimants’ UI spells. States may 

perceive this as an effective way to decrease UI durations and trust fund expenditures. 

However, changing to initial-claim profiling may not yield the results intended, because 

doing so affects the mix of claimants who are called in for and who receive services and thereby 

influences the state’s ability to target services to likely UI exhaustees (Table V.4). When 

profiling occurs at initial claim, several groups of claimants are included in the selection pool: 

(1) claimants who are eligible for benefits but who do not receive a first payment, (2) claimants
131 

TABLE V.4 

CLAIMANT GROUPS INCLUDED IN WPRS PROFILING AND ORIENTATION 

 Profiling Conducted at Initial Claim Profiling Conducted at First Payment 

Claimants Who: 

In 

Selection 

Pool 

Likelihood of Attending 

Orientation Workshop Held 

Three Weeks After Call-In 

 In 

Selection 

Pool 

Likelihood of Attending 

Orientation Workshop Held 

Three Weeks After Call-In 

Are denied benefits Yes Low No None 

Are eligible for 

benefits but do not 

receive a first payment Yes Low No None 

Become reemployed 

within three weeks 

after initial claim Yes Low Yes Low 

Become reemployed 

between three and five 

weeks after initial 

claim Yes High Yes Low 

Are not reemployed 

within five weeks after 

initial claim Yes High Yes High 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

NOTE: For simplicity, we assume that all claimants are monetarily eligible for benefits, because the SIG states 

that profile “at initial claim” include only monetarily eligible claimants in the selection pool. We also 

assume that the orientation workshops are held at three weeks after the initial claim when profiling is 

conducted at initial claim, and at five weeks after the initial claim when profiling is conducted at first 

payment. Finally, we assume that eligible claimants discontinue receiving benefits because they become 

reemployed. Altering these assumptions in plausible ways will probably not affect the analysis. 
132

who are denied benefits, and (3) first-payment recipients. When profiling occurs at first 

payment, the first two groups are not in the selection pool. 

Claimants in the first two groups may choose to participate in services (such as the initial 

orientation or job search assistance workshop), but their likelihood of doing so is probably low.15 

It is likely that most claimants in the first group, those who are eligible for benefits but who 

never receive a first payment, have quickly become reemployed and thus do not need or receive 

services. The claimants who are denied benefits (the second group) may need services as much 

or more than claimants who receive first payments. Nevertheless, the state is unable to reduce 

UI trust fund expenditures by serving them. In addition, because both groups of claimants are 

not collecting benefits, the UI program is unable to enforce its participation requirement. Thus 

claimants in these two groups who are called in and show up for the orientation workshop are, in 

one sense, participating voluntarily and through their own initiative. 

First-payment recipients are included in the selection pool, regardless of whether profiling 

occurs at initial claim or at first payment. However, there is a usually a period of several weeks 

between the profiling call-in and when claimants’ first service is scheduled. Because claimants 

who are collecting benefits at the time of the first service are still looking for work, they are 

likely to have higher participation rates than claimants who become reemployed before the date 

of the first service. Similarly, claimants who receive a first payment but who would find a job 

within a few weeks of their initial claims are probably more likely to participate when the 

 15South Carolina staff reported that claimants who do not receive benefits have lower 

participation rates than those who do: 27 percent compared to 71 percent. These staff also 

reported that the change in the timing of profiling caused a lot of inefficiencies because local 

office staff had to spend more time responding to telephone calls from discontented or confused 

claimants and following up on claimants who did not show up for the orientation workshop. 

Other states, such as Minnesota and Washington, did not encounter this problem as much. 
133

scheduling of services is early in their UI spells. When the workshop occurs later in the UI claim 

period, only claimants who are still looking for work at that time are highly likely to participate. 

Thus, profiling earlier in the UI claim process is likely to reduce a state’s ability to target 

services to potential exhaustees. Profiling models are designed to identify claimants who are 

likely exhaustees, so that they may be called in for services. However, the profiling models can 

identify likely exhaustees only imprecisely, so some claimants who can find jobs early in their 

claim spells, without the benefit of WPRS services, may be called in. Naturally, the passage of 

time acts as a screening mechanism to help distinguish between these claimants and those who 

have a difficult time finding a job. The later service delivery is, the higher is the concentration of 

potential exhaustees who receive those services, and the better targeted those services are. When 

services are delivered early in the UI spell, some claimants who would naturally exit the UI 

system will “crowd out” likely exhaustees from the receipt of services. South Carolina and 

Washington found when profiling at initial claim that about 15 percent of claimants who showed 

up for an orientation workshop did not eventually receive a UI benefit check. 

For a fixed level of resources, therefore, it is an empirical question whether profiling at first 

payment or at initial claim is more effective at meeting the WPRS goal of reducing weeks of UI 

benefits paid and trust fund expenditures. Which timing is better depends on the extra reduction 

in average duration for claimants who receive services when they are profiled at initial claim 

rather than at first payment and the percentage of claimants who do not receive benefits and who 

participate in services when WPRS is at initial claim. For example, suppose that a state can 

provide WPRS services to 100 people and that average duration would be 14 weeks without 

these services (Scenario 1 in Table V.5). In the absence of WPRS, these 100 people would 

collect benefits for 1,400 weeks. Suppose that providing reemployment services when profiling 

occurs at first payment reduces the average weeks of UI benefits from 14.00 to 13.25
134 

TABLE V.5 

EFFECTS OF WPRS ON WEEKS OF UI BENEFITS PAID 

 Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4 Scenario 5 

Timing of Profiling No Profiling First Payment Initial Claim Initial Claim Initial Claim 

Number of Claimants 

Receiving WPRS 100 100 100 100 100 

Average UI Duration of 

Claimants Who Do Not 

Receive WPRS Services 

(Weeks) 14.00 n.a. 14.00 14.00 14.00 

Average UI Duration of 

Claimants Who Receive 

WPRS Services When 

Profiled at First Payment 

(Weeks) n.a. 13.25 n.a. n.a. n.a. 

Average UI Duration of 

Claimants Who Receive 

WPRS Services When 

Profiled at Initial Claim 

(Weeks) n.a. n.a. 13.15 13.00 13.15 

Percentage of Claimants 

Who Get Served and Who 

Do Not Receive UI 

Benefits n.a. n.a. 15 15 10 

Total Weeks of UI Benefits 

Collecteda

 1,400 1,325 1,328 1,315 1,324 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

NOTE: These examples are hypothetical, and estimates of the total weeks of UI benefits collected will vary based 

on the empirical estimates of the average UI durations of claimants and the percentage of claimants who 

receive WPRS services when profiling is conducted at initial claim and who do not receive UI benefits. 

n.a. = not applicable. 

a

Total weeks of UI benefits collected under Scenario 1 equals (100 claimants × 14 weeks per claimant). Under 

Scenario 2, the number of weeks of UI benefits collected equals (100 first payment recipients × 13.25 weeks per 

claimant). Under Scenario 3, the number of weeks of UI benefits collected equals [(85 claimants × 13.15 weeks 

per claimant) + (15 claimants × 14 weeks per claimant)]. Under Scenario 4, the number of weeks of benefits 

collected equals [(85 claimants × 13.00 weeks per claimant) + (15 claimants × 14 weeks per claimant)]. Under 

Scenario 5, the weeks of benefits paid equals [(90 claimants × 13.15 weeks per claimant) + (10 claimants × 14 

weeks per claimant)]. 
135

(Scenario 2). In this case, the number of weeks of benefits collected would be 1,325. Hence, 

profiling at first payment successfully reduces weeks paid by 75 (1,400 weeks – 1,325 weeks). 

Now suppose that a state is considering profiling at initial claim because it believes that 

doing so will reduce the average weeks of UI benefits even more than profiling at first payment 

does. As an example (Scenario 3), we have assumed that (1) claimants who receive services 

when profiling occurs at initial claim collect benefits for an average of 13.15 weeks, and 

(2) switching from first-payment profiling to initial-claim profiling leads to receipt of services by 

15 claimants who do not get a first payment. If WPRS occurs at initial claim, then 85 firstpayment recipients will receive services, and 15 claimants who do not receive benefits also will 

receive services. The 15 claimants who do not receive benefits are “crowding out” 15 UI 

recipients who could have received services but do not. The total number of weeks of benefits 

collected would be 1,328. Although UI recipients who receive services have lower UI durations, 

UI recipients who do not receive them (but would have if profiling occurred at first payment) 

have higher UI durations. On net, a state would increase weeks of benefits paid to these 100 UI 

recipients by switching profiling from at first payment to at initial claim. 

However, making other assumptions about (1) how much UI durations decrease when 

profiling occurs at initial claim, and (2) what the “crowding out effect” caused by nonrecipients 

is will affect this conclusion. If switching to profiling at initial claim reduces the average UI 

duration for claimants who receive WPRS services to 13.00 weeks (rather than 13.15 weeks; see 

Scenario 4), then the number of weeks of benefits collected would be 1,315. If the “crowding 

out effect” is only 10 claimants (rather than 15; see Scenario 5), then weeks of benefits paid 

would be 1,324. Under either of these scenarios, the state could have a lower trust fund 

expenditure by profiling at initial claim, at the same time providing services to some people who 

do not receive UI benefits. 
136

In sum, profiling at initial claim generally allows states to provide services earlier, but it also 

dilutes the effectiveness of WPRS targeting on likely exhaustees. In addition, it may increase or 

decrease trust fund expenditures. Regardless of the influence of switching from first-payment 

profiling to initial-claim profiling on the UI trust fund, policymakers will need to decide how to 

value providing services to unemployed workers who are disqualified from UI but who are at a 

high risk of long unemployment durations.16 The more valuable this is to policymakers, the 

more compelling profiling at initial claim will be. 

b. States Face Trade-Offs Between Ensuring Claimant Cooperation in Service Receipt 

and Enforcing Participation Requirements 

During our data collection, many states cited the difficulty involved in both achieving a 

cooperative and constructive relationship with claimants with mandated participation in WPRS 

services and enforcing participation requirements. Different states may choose various strategies 

to balance these issues, but they should be aware of how their decision influences their ability to 

achieve other aspects of WPRS systems, such as early intervention and efficient use of staff time. 

All states allow claimants who contact the local office prior to a required orientation session 

to reschedule if they report a good cause for being unable to attend, such as having a job 

interview scheduled at the same time. Because the claimant has initiated contact in response to 

the state’s instructions to participate in a service and has provided a valid reason for wanting to 

reschedule, the state is able to maintain a cooperative relationship with the claimant. 

 16The WPRS Policy Workgroup notes that providing access to services for the widest 

possible group of workers through profiling at initial claim is consistent with WIA’s focus on 

providing job seekers with universal access to a core set of resources to help with job search and 

decision making about careers (Wandner and Messenger 1999). 
137

However, some claimants may ignore the WPRS requirement to participate in a service and 

fail to contact the local office in advance to provide a reason and reschedule. Without further 

information from the client, the state must then decide how to respond. 

States vary in the number of opportunities to participate that they give to claimants whose 

noncompliance suggests that they are not able or available to work or not actively seeking 

employment. Some SIG states give claimants several chances to attend an orientation session 

before subjecting them to adjudication. As a result, some claimants who eventually receive 

WPRS services may do so quite late in their unemployment spells, which reduces the potential 

benefits of early intervention. However, allowing claimants more than one opportunity to 

participate before initiating adjudication may avoid unnecessary adjudications. 

In contrast, other SIG states instruct local office staff to report no-shows for adjudication the 

first time a claimant fails to report to a WPRS activity. This speedy enforcement of requirements 

may help ensure that claimants who receive services do so early in their periods of 

unemployment. However, adjudication rates are likely to increase,17 and it is unclear whether 

this will result in a small or a large increase in denials. If the quick referral to adjudication 

identifies uncooperative claimants, denials will increase.18 However, if the adjudication 

identifies primarily claimants who failed to show for just cause, then staff workloads may 

 17Adjudication staff may have difficulty handling the increased workload if they already are 

experiencing heavy workloads and no additional staff are available to assist them. If so, then the 

speed at which adjudications are handled may be reduced as staff develop a backlog of work. In 

some circumstances, in contrast, the adjudication staff may be able to absorb the extra work 

without affecting the timeliness of their work. 

18Needels et al. (2001) found that few claimants who were required to participate in WPRS 

services but did not do so were asked why not, and even fewer reported losing some benefits as a 

result. It is unclear at what rates determinations and denials would occur if enforcement of 

WPRS requirements was comprehensive, since many of these claimants were probably back at 

work by the time the orientation workshop was scheduled. 
138

increase without yielding either UI trust fund savings or improved program integrity.19 Giving 

claimants only one opportunity to participate before adjudication also may stifle a cooperative 

relationship between claimants and staff when the claimants eventually do participate. 

C. INFERENCES ABOUT THE WIA 

DOL viewed supporting implementation of the WIA as a main goal of the SIGs (see Chapter 

I). During the two-year grant period, SIG states were making great strides to reform federal job 

training programs and create new, comprehensive workforce investment systems. The reformed 

systems are intended to be customer focused, to help customers access high-quality services and 

support workers in developing and furthering their careers, and to help U.S. companies find 

skilled workers (Federal Register 2000). States’ SIG-funded efforts to improve their UI and 

reemployment services systems most directly pertained to the key WIA principles of: 

• Streamlining services in the one-stop delivery system by having programs and 

providers co-locate, coordinate, and integrate activities and information 

• Universal access so that any individual will have access to the one-stop system and to 

core employment-related services, such as information about job vacancies, career 

options, relevant employment trends, and instruction on how to conduct a job search, 

write a resume, or interview with an employer 

• Empowering individuals through guidance and support available through the one-stop 

system and its partners 

• Increased accountability using core indicators of performance that state and local 

entities managing the workforce investment system must meet—or suffer sanctions if 

they do not.20

 19Some states used the SIGs to automate the referral process of no-shows to UI. This is 

likely to improve the sharing of this information and reduce staff time for some activities (such 

as data entry), but, as discussed, it may increase staff time for other activities (such as 

adjudication). 

20The principle of empowering individuals also is to be done through Individual Training 

Accounts and reports on the performance outcomes of training and education providers. Other 

key principles for WIA include (1) a strong role for local workforce investment boards and the 
139

The WIA legislation establishes three tiers of services: core, intensive, and training. Core 

services to be available include intake and orientation to the information and other services 

available through the one-stop system; initial assessment of skill levels, abilities, and supportive 

service needs; job search and placement assistance; career counseling; and statistics on the local 

labor market, occupational skills requirements, and training-related information. In general, 

intensive services and training are made available to adults and dislocated workers either who are 

unemployed and unable to obtain employment through core services only or who are employed 

but need additional services to achieve self-sufficiency. Intensive services may include 

diagnostic testing and use of other assessment tools; in-depth interviewing and evaluation to 

identify employment barriers and goals; development of an individual employment plan, 

including services needed to achieve the employment goals; group or individual counseling and 

career planning; case management; and short-term prevocational services (such as the 

development of communication or interviewing skills) to prepare the individual for unsubsidized 

employment or training. 

Throughout our data collection efforts, states and one-stops reported viewing the integration 

process as ongoing. Nevertheless, we identified several patterns across states as they 

implemented WIA and integrated WPRS activities in their one-stop environments, which we 

describe below. 

 

(continued) 

private sector, (2) state and local flexibility to meet the particular needs of local and regional 

labor markets, and (3) improved youth programs (Federal Register 2000). 
140

1. At The Time of Our Visits, States Varied Significantly in Their Implementation of the 

One-Stop System 

States faced a variety of hurdles as they worked toward setting up one-stops; in almost all 

instances, they recognized they still had a long way to go. Often, states renovated some local 

offices that traditionally housed the ES and UI programs into one-stops and allowed partner 

agencies to move in. We encountered positive instances of states or one-stops that had made 

considerable progress toward integration or that were actively working toward this goal. 

Partners were sharing responsibility for providing workshops, for example, or meeting regularly 

to address issues that came up in the one-stops. However, we also encountered instances in 

which one-stops needed to overcome barriers to better implement the one-stop system. A 

common barrier was that the partners’ presence was minimal or their staff had little interaction 

with the other programs. Occasionally, ES and/or UI staff may have felt limited in their space in 

the one-stops because of overcrowding in the offices resulting from inclusion of the partner 

agencies. We also heard a few staff members report frustration about perceived imbalances in 

the cost-sharing arrangements between the UI, ES, and partner agencies, given that partners were 

less likely to contribute to the one-stops’ cash outlays, such as for rent or utilities, and more 

likely to donate in-kind resources, such as computers or staffing for the front desk. These issues 

will need to be addressed to foster greater cross-program cooperation and integration at the local 

level. 

Nevertheless, states seemed further along in their development of self-access resource rooms 

in one-stops. Many of these rooms were large and inviting, and they provided job seekers access 

to a wide range of resources to aid their job search. One-stop customers had self-service or staffassisted access to computers with Internet access, word processing software, career exploration 

software, and software training packages and local labor market information; fax machines; 
141

photocopy machines; laser printers; telephones; and a space with newspapers and other useful 

written materials. To this extent, it appears that many one-stops have increased access to 

important employment-related services and tools. 

2. States Are Challenged When Integrating Data Systems to Provide Better Customer 

Service and Implement Performance Monitoring. 

States reported facing several struggles when trying to integrate data systems (discussed 

more fully in Chapter IV). These included difficulty because the process was complex and 

inability to obtain enough staff time to overcome the programming hurdles. They also included 

issues surrounding the confidentiality of the data and concerns about improving existing systems 

when major upgrades were expected. Often, systems integration lagged behind other aspects of 

WIA implementation, such as co-location of services and increased customer access to job 

search and career planning information. Nevertheless, state staff recognized the potential benefit 

of data systems integration and other improvements to help achieve WIA goals, such as 

providing better service to customers and developing appropriate and consistent performance 

measures. Additional benefits included developing more effective tools for identifying 

appropriate policy directions and increased efficiency of data entry processes. State and local 

areas may have to continue their efforts to integrate data systems in ways that facilitate 

performance accountability and the management of local workforce development systems to 

meet customer needs in a timely way (U.S. Department of Labor 2001). 

3. Strong State-Level Leadership Can Facilitate Implementation of WIA One-Stops. 

A key aspect of the WIA is the decentralization of decision making and authority to local 

workforce investment boards, which are best equipped to meet the particular needs of local and 

regional labor markets. Some of the SIG staff, however, emphasized the importance of statelevel agency coordination to provide guidelines and structure for local policies and to set the tone 
142

for interagency collaboration. Alaska is a good example of how state-level officials from key 

agencies have been actively involved in joint planning meetings and have set the tone for 

collaboration at the local level. 

Some staff members cited a lack of state-level leadership as the cause of inefficiencies in the 

transition process to WIA. Local-level staff in at least one state established informal linkages to 

build local policy (on issues such as staffing and data confidentiality) while they awaited statelevel guidance, but they had to revise some of these new policies when the state finally provided 

its guidance. Many of these implementation problems are likely to be resolved over time. 

However, an ongoing need for state-level leadership is likely to exist because of the changes that 

will occur as states and local areas refine their systems as states undergo organizational changes, 

as well as in response to changes in the program environment and local labor market needs. 

4. Mechanisms for the Appropriate Referral of WPRS Clients to WIA Services Are 

Important. 

While the WIA legislation cites the WPRS system as one method of intake to core services, 

it also can be a mechanism to link UI claimants to intensive services and training (Federal 

Register 2000). Many, but not all, state and one-stop staff reported that the WPRS system is an 

important method to bring customers to the one-stop. This may be especially true in states that 

no longer require in-person filing of UI claims. 

However, WPRS and many of the SIG-funded improvements have focused on the linkage 

between the UI and ES programs and data systems, rather than on linkages with partner agencies. 

This pattern is probably because ES staff historically have been the primary providers of 

orientation services and subsequent workshops for UI claimants. Washington is an example of 

more advanced integration. Staff from partner agencies can lead job search assistance 

workshops that are part of the SESA’s workshop series, as long as these workshops meet the 
143

standards for the series. A training conference conducted in June 2001 further improved 

coordination with and among the SESA and these other one-stop partners. 

The WPRS system’s emphasis may need to change over time as more comprehensive 

integration occurs with other service providers in the one-stops. States and one-stop agencies 

need to ensure that the WPRS system is fully integrated with other one-stop services and that 

staff who provide these services are familiar with the complete range of one-stop activities. The 

WPRS system will then be better able to provide comprehensive and appropriate referrals to 

WIA services so that claimants can better use the full range of services available to them. 

5. A Few States Reported That Their Transition to WIA Had Some Negative Effects on 

Their Ability to Conduct WPRS Activities. 

The implementation of WIA can increase the availability of services to WPRS claimants 

through the co-location of different agencies or service providers; the development and sharing 

of resources in self-access resource rooms; the provision of information on the labor market, 

careers, and training options; and other methods. It also can improve the appropriateness of 

referrals to services as claimants have more options and to enhance the quality of services 

received because service providers must be more accountable. Given these potential benefits, 

some state and one-stop staff expressed optimism about the effects of the WIA on their ability to 

administer the WPRS system and serve UI claimants. 

However, some of these same staff members, and others, reported drawbacks that have 

occurred as part of the transition process. Staff in three states reported frustration or 

disappointment that funds to provide WPRS reemployment services were reduced because of 

WIA or that WIA funds were unavailable for WPRS services. Several WPRS staff members 

reported an inability to increase the number of WPRS workshops because one-stop agreements 

limited their use of conference rooms. In almost all instances, the WPRS orientation workshops 
144

were restricted to UI claimants who were required to participate as a result of having been 

identified as likely to exhaust their benefits. Not all of these claimants may qualify for intensive 

services of the WIA, so states may be unable to combine WPRS participants and WIA 

participants into a single WIA workshop.21 These space and funding limitations may affect the 

ability to expand WPRS follow-up services or make adequate referrals to other services.22 

In addition, states may still be trying to decide how best to meet the needs of WPRS 

claimants upon implementation of the WIA regulations and the development of one-stops. For 

example, at least one state reported shortening its WPRS-mandated workshop by two hours 

(from three hours to one) as a result of the WIA regulations. The new workshop provides an 

orientation to WIA services rather than instruction about job search skills and resources. 

Claimants who are eligible to receive WIA services and interested in doing so can subsequently 

register in the WIA system and receive these services after the WPRS workshop.23 However, 

other claimants may be less likely to receive the job search skills training previously offered and 

may benefit less from the new style of workshop if they fail to obtain additional services. Care 

should be taken to ensure that states and one-stops implement the WIA in a way that encourages 

 21In addition, some staff reported preferring to have a separate WPRS workshop because it 

allowed better group dynamics or the ability to tailor the workshop to the needs of participants. 

22For example, we attended one WPRS orientation that had to be held in a satellite one-stop 

about six blocks away from the main one-stop because of space constraints. Claimants who 

wanted to use a computer after attending the orientation were told to go to the main one-stop, 

because computers in the satellite one-stop were dedicated for the use of the partners’ clients. It 

seems likely that this would deter WPRS claimants from using one-stop services. 

23At the same time, this state trained new workshop leaders to better ensure that they were 

familiar with other one-stop programs and could make better referrals. Thus, the state was 

optimistic that WPRS claimants could be better linked to an established system, rather than 

having only one opportunity for claimants to learn about other services and to obtain needed job 

search skills. 
145

claimants to benefit from both the WPRS system and the WIA so that they receive better services 

and obtain better post-UI labor market outcomes than before. 

147

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Department of Labor, 1999c. 

U.S. Department of Labor. “Evaluation of the Maryland Unemployment Insurance Work Search 

Demonstration.” Unemployment Insurance Occasional Paper 98-2. Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of Labor, 1998. 

U.S. Department of Labor. “The Changing Labor Market and the Need for a Reemployment 

Response.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, December 1993. 
148

U.S. General Accounting Office. “Workforce Investment Act: Better Guidance and Revised 

Funding Would Enhance Dislocated Worker Program.” Report to Congressional 

Requesters. GAO-02-274. Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, February 2002. 

Wandner, Stephen A., and Jon C. Messenger (eds.) “Worker Profiling and Reemployment 

Services Policy Workgroup: Final Report and Recommendations.” Washington, DC: U.S. 

Department of Labor, February 1999. 
APPENDIX A 

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF CLAIMANT OUTCOMES

A.3

As discussed in Chapter I, the two-year SIGs were intended to “increase the effectiveness of 

reemployment services for UI claimants” by improving the WPRS systems in grantee states 

(U.S. Department of Labor 1999a). Within this framework, and as discussed in Chapters II 

through IV, states chose a wide variety of strategies for their SIG activities, such as altering their 

profiling models, updating or expanding service delivery, and modifying their data systems. 

States had varying degrees of success in these efforts (see Chapter V). 

In this appendix, we examine whether quantitative analysis of the changes in service use, 

and UI program measures provides further information on the effects of the SIG efforts. Large, 

systematic improvements in these measures between the pre- and post-SIG periods would 

suggest that the SIG activities affected claimant outcomes beneficially. 

However, several reasons suggest that this analysis may be limited. First, other influences 

on these outcome measures, such as changes in the economy or the broader service system over 

time, prevent us from concluding that changes in them are caused by the SIG activities rather 

than other factors. The efforts of SIG states to reform their UI and reemployment service 

systems in other targeted ways, using funds other than the SIGs, could be expected to change 

claimant outcomes. Second, many of the grant activities may have provided important benefits, 

such as increased staff efficiency or improved interagency coordination; but they are likely to 

affect clamant outcomes only in the long run. Finally, two states (Alaska and West Virginia) 

used their SIGs to modify the reporting systems that generate the data used for this analysis. 

These efforts are likely to affect pre-post comparisons, because the quality of the data has 
A.4

improved over time.1 Changes in the tracking of outcomes may make it appear that the number 

or concentration of claimants who receive services has changed, when it has not. 

1. Analysis Strategy 

We use state-level data reported to DOL to examine changes in claimant outcomes over time 

as a result of the SIG efforts.2

 To try to identify the influences of the SIG, we compare outcome 

measures from a period when most SIG activities were implemented with the corresponding 

measures before the two-year SIG period. Because some states did not implement their SIG 

activities until late in the grant period, we restrict the post-SIG period to the last six months of 

the grant period (January through June 2001).3 For the pre-SIG period, we use the average of the 

comparable six-month periods in the two years before the beginning of the grant period. Thus, 

outcomes for the pre-SIG period are based on the average of the outcomes for January to June 

1998 and January to June 1999. Using a six-month time frame for the pre- and post-SIG periods 

seems a reasonable balance between the need for data as recent as possible and the need for a 

time period long enough to insulate the data against random fluctuations. Using January through 

June for both time periods avoids problems caused by seasonality. However, our results were 

not sensitive to the way we defined the time periods. 

Because there are many different potential outcomes for the analysis, we focus on measures 

that provide the strongest assessments of potential impacts on claimants, as well as those most 

 1

More generally, we detected, in the data on WPRS activities and ES involvement, 

inconsistencies and other potential errors suggesting that the quality of the data may not be high. 

2

State-level data are the only ones consistently available for all states. However, several of 

the SIG states (such as California and Wisconsin) implemented changes only in specific local 

areas. SIG-induced changes at a substate level may be hard to detect using these data. 

3

Data to use as the post-implementation period were not yet available from the period after 

the grant was over. 
A.5

likely to have been directly affected by the SIG efforts (Table A.1). UI exhaustion rates and 

weeks of benefits collected are important to consider, because providing reemployment services 

to claimants earlier in their UI spells, improving the quality of these services, and increasing the 

number of claimants who receive services may improve claimants’ job search skills and speed 

their return to work, thereby reducing UI exhaustion rates and durations.4 In addition, better 

targeting of services to claimants who can benefit most from them, through improvements to the 

profiling model, is expected to lower exhaustion rates and shorten UI durations, even if no more 

claimants are served. Reductions in weeks of benefits collected also is an explicit goal of WPRS 

systems, because of the resulting reductions in expenditures from the UI trust fund. 

SIG activities are hypothesized as affecting exhaustion rates and UI durations similarly. If 

SIG activities were to decrease exhaustion rates, we would expect a decline in UI durations as 

well. If they were to have no effect on exhaustion rates, we would expect to observe no SIGinduced change in durations. 

Because increases in service receipt are intermediate goals of WPRS systems, we also 

examine the proportion of claimants who are referred to services and who receive them.5

 Several 

states added staff to increase the number and proportion of claimants served. Other states strove 

to improve the timeliness of referrals. The earlier in the UI claim process that referrals are made 

 4

See Chapter V for a detailed discussion of the relationship between service receipt and UI 

outcomes. An analysis of the post-UI employment and earnings of claimants cannot be 

conducted, because the data for the appropriate time period are not available. Data on post-UI 

employment and earnings for WPRS claimants lag other data by about 18 months. 

5

To control for changes in the number of initial claims, we normalized the measures of 

referrals to and receipt of services by the number of initial claims. Doing so, however, does not 

affect our results. 
TABLE A.1 

HYPOTHESIZED EFFECTS OF SIG ACTIVITIES ON CLAIMANT OUTCOMES 

 UI Outcomes Services Determinations Denials 

Exhaustion 

Rate 

Benefits 

Collected 

WPRS 

Referrals 

to Service 

WPRS 

Reporting 

for 

Services 

Received 

ES-Provided 

Service 

WPRSRelated 

NonWPRSRelated WPRS- Related Non- WPRS- Related 

Expediting the identification of claimants at a high risk of benefit exhaustion 

– – + + + 

Expanding the pool of WPRS eligibles – – + + + Improving the claimant selection process – – Improving orientation and reemployment workshops 

– – + 

Strengthening the assessment processa – – + + + + + 

Enhancing WPRS follow-up activitiesa – – + + + + + 

Facilitating receipt of self-access services – – + Increasing WPRS service capacity – – + + + Strengthening the profiling/call-in link – – + + 

A.6 
TABLE A.1 (continued) 

A.7 

 UI Outcomes Services Determinations Denials 

Exhaustion 

Rate 

Benefits 

Collected 

WPRS 

Referrals 

to Service 

WPRS 

Reporting 

for 

Services 

Received 

ES-Provided 

Service 

WPRSRelated 

NonWPRSRelated WPRS- Related Non- WPRS- Related 

Strengthening the link between service delivery and the UI system 

– – + + + + 

Improving coordination among agencies and offices 

– – + 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

NOTE: Improving data systems to enhance service delivery and monitoring also may affect claimant out comes. However, we have not included this activity, 

because these effects are likely to work only indirectly through increased staff efficiency or changes in procedures. 

“+” denotes an increase in the outcome. 

“–” denotes a decrease in the outcome. 

aStrengthening the assessment and enhancing follow-up activities may be expected to increase determinations and denials only when claimants are required to 

participate in more activities. 
A.8

and participation is required, the more likely claimants are to receive services. Increases in 

service receipt are one mechanism for improving UI and post-UI labor market outcomes. 

Finally, we examine rates of determinations and denials for nonseparation reasons, because 

some efforts to improve the WPRS data system linkages, such as standardizing the procedures 

for the report of WPRS no-shows to the UI program, may be expected to increase these UI 

activities.6 We look at nonseparation determinations and denials both for profiling referral 

refusals and for all causes, because changes in WPRS activities may affect determinations and 

denials for standard UI causes as well. For example, an adjudicator may determine that a 

claimant was unable to work or unavailable for work because he or she reported lacking child 

care or transportation necessary to attend a mandatory WPRS orientation. 

Most states implemented changes that could be expected to improve many of these claimant 

outcomes during the SIG period (Table A.2). However, not all SIG activities can be expected to 

do so. In some instances, a state decided against implementing its proposed changes. In others, 

a state successfully implemented a SIG-funded change, but only after the end of the grant period, 

June 30, 2001. In addition, some states are still planning to implement certain SIG activities. 

These activities will not yield detectable outcome changes that are attributable to their SIG 

efforts, because the post-SIG analysis period is the last six months of the grant period (January to 

June 2001). These states may have detectable changes in claimant outcomes in the future. 

2. Results 

No clear pattern of changes in UI exhaustion rates and weeks of benefits collected can be 

detected (Table A.3). The changes are quite large for some states, and small for others. For

 6

We normalized the determination and denials by the number of continued weeks claimed. 

We also explored normalization of determinations and denials for profiling referral refusals by 

the number of profiling referrals. Neither normalization strategy affected our results. 
TABLE A.2 

HYPOTHESIZED CHANGES IN CLAIMANT OUTCOMES FOR SIG STATES 

 UI Outcomes Services Determinations Denials 

Exhaustion 

Rate 

Benefits 

Collected 

WPRS 

Referrals to 

Service 

WPRS 

Reporting for 

Services 

Received ESProvided 

Service 

WPRSRelated 

NonWPRSRelated WPRS- Related Non-WPRS- Related 

Alaska – – + + + + + + + California – – + 

Louisiana – – + + + 

Maryland – – + + + + + + 

Minnesota – – + + + + + + + 

New Yorka – – + + + + + 

North Carolinab – – + + + 

South Carolina – – + + + + + + + 

Washington – – + 

West Virginia – – + + + 

Wisconsin – – + + + 

SOURCE: Mathematica Policy Research Evaluation of the Significant Improvement Demonstration Grants. 

“+” denotes an increase in the outcome.  “–” denotes a decrease in the outcome. 

aSome of New York’s SIG changes were implemented after the grant period was over, and others are still being planned; so the hypothesized changes are not expected 

to be detected with the data used for the analysis. 

bNorth Carolina’s SIG activities were independent of the SIG system and are hypothesized to increase the receipt of Employment Service provided services and nonWPRS-related determinations and denials. 

A.9 
TABLE A.3 

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE OUTCOMES OF SIG STATES 

 Exhaustion Rate UI Duration Total Unemployment Rate 

 Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) 

Percent 

Change 

 Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Weeks) 

SIG Level 

(Weeks) 

Percent 

Change 

 Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) 

Percent 

Change 

Alaska 56.7 52.4 –7.6 13.8 14.1 2.1 6.8 7.0 3.0 California 41.6 41.6 0.1 15.8 14.2 –9.6 5.8 5.1 –12.1 Louisiana 29.9 35.8 19.9 13.9 13.2 –5.2 5.5 5.9 7.3 Maryland 32.1 31.7 –1.2 13.9 12.6 –9.8 4.3 3.9 –9.3 Minnesota 36.1 38.4 6.3 13.7 13.3 –3.0 2.9 3.9 34.5 North Carolina 21.0 22.9 8.7 7.6 8.4 9.9 3.4 5.1 50.0 

New York 48.1 51.5 6.9 16.6 14.5 –13.0 5.7 4.5 –21.1 South Carolina 23.2 29.2 26.0 9.2 9.6 5.2 4.0 5.0 25.0 Washington 38.0 31.3 –17.8 16.4 15.0 –8.4 5.0 6.2 24.0 Wisconsin 21.5 23.6 10.1 10.0 9.8 –2.6 3.6 4.9 36.1 West Virginia 24.1 22.3 –7.8 11.7 11.5 –1.6 7.1 5.5 –22.5 

SOURCE: The UI exhaustion rate and UI duration are computed from state-level monthly data reported to the Unemployment 

Insurance Service on the ETA-5159. The unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [stats.bls.gov/lau]. 

NOTE: The pre-SIG level is the average for the first six months of 1998 and 1999. The SIG level is the average for the first six 

months of 2001, which are the last six months of the SIG grant period. 

A.10 
A.11

several states, these two outcomes move in opposite directions. Beneficial effects of SIG 

activities, if they exist, are probably swamped by other influences on these UI outcomes. 

Taking into account the relationship between UI outcomes and the business cycle, as 

measured by the unemployment rate, does not provide any additional insights.7 Trends over time 

were mixed, with some states experiencing increases in the unemployment rates, and others 

experiencing decreases. In a few states, an increase in the unemployment rate is associated with 

an increase in exhaustion rates and UI durations, a result commonly found by researchers (see, 

for example, U.S. Department of Labor 1999c). This is not consistently so, however. Given 

these patterns across states, we cannot reasonably conclude that the observed changes are 

attributable to SIG efforts and not other factors. 

Similarly, data on referrals to and receipt of services do not show consistent patterns (Table 

A.4). For some states, we observe large increases in the number of claimants referred to and 

reporting to services; other states show much smaller increases, or even decreases. Some show 

an increase in WPRS referrals and a decrease in receipt of WPRS services, or vice versa. 

Overall, no consistent relationship between our hypotheses and changes in the data can be 

found. States for which we expected increases may or may not have had them; the same is true 

of states for which we were not expecting increases. For example, New York had a large 

increase in WPRS service referrals and receipt and a large decrease in receipt of ES services; 

however, we did not hypothesize that New York’s SIG activities would lead to these increases.8

 

 7

Most states’ unemployment rates were generally low during this period compared to 

historical standards, ranging from 3 to 7 percent. 

8

New York’s activities to improve the data system and profiling model were not 

implemented during the SIG period. New York’s staff training and implementation of new 

assessment tool were implemented during the SIG period, but they are unlikely to have caused an 

increase in WPRS referrals. 
TABLE A.4 

REFERRAL AND SERVICE OUTCOMES OF SIG STATES 

(Per Initial Claim) 

 WPRS Referrals to Services WPRS Reporting for Services 

 Employment Service: Received 

Reportable Service 

Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

Percent 

Change 

 Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

Percent 

Change 

 Pre-SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

SIG 

Level 

(Percent) 

Percent 

Change 

Alaska 5.2 4.3 –16.8 2.3 2.5 8.0 24.0 14.6 –39.1 California 8.7 8.3 –5.1 4.1 3.8 –6.6 4.0 4.3 7.2 Louisiana 15.5 13.1 –15.6 13.8 10.2 –25.8 47.9 52.0 8.5 Maryland 16.9 NA NA 24.4 NA NA 32.2 17.4 –46.0 Minnesota 18.2 27.8 53.1 17.6 25.9 46.9 21.9 29.3 34.1 North Carolina 7.4 5.6 –25.2 48.2 62.5 29.6 44.4 49.5 11.6 New York 3.3 15.7 373.1 3.3 15.6 376.2 35.5 7.4 –79.1 South Carolina 6.6 15.3 132.8 8.0 24.8 209.6 38.3 36.5 –4.7 Washington 20.2 29.6 46.4 20.7 24.3 17.1 48.8 49.5 1.3 Wisconsin 5.0 5.2 4.9 4.1 3.9 –5.4 21.4 18.8 –12.0 West Virginia 6.1 7.6 25.9 5.9 5.1 –12.6 41.1 47.0 14.2 SOURCE: The WPRS data and initial claims data are computed from state-level data reported to the Unemployment Insurance 

Service on the ETA-9048 and ETA-5159. The Employment Service data come from the ETA-9002 report. 

NOTE: The pre-SIG level is the average for the first six months of 1998 and 1999. The SIG level is the average for the first six 

months of 2001, which are the last six months of the SIG grant period. 

NA = Data not available. 

A.12 
A.13

Although we are not certain, the WPRS data might be capturing the increase in participation 

required at the non-WPRS orientation workshop. In contrast, South Carolina’s large increases 

are consistent with what state staff reported to us, and they are likely to have been caused by the 

switch from profiling at first payment to at initial claim. However, because more claimants are 

being served by WPRS, we hypothesized that South Carolina’s data on ES services would also 

show an increase; but they did not. 

Data on determinations and denials tell a similar story (Tables A.5 and A.6). Determination 

and denial rates for profiling referral refusals are rare and often show extremely large changes 

between the pre- and post-SIG periods. Two of the four states for which we expected increases 

in these rates (Minnesota and South Carolina) showed increases, while the other two (Alaska and 

Maryland) showed decreases. The other states, for which we did not hypothesize changes, 

showed changes as well. 

Nonseparation determination and denials for all causes had smaller fluctuations over time, 

most likely because these activities occur more frequently.9

 Nevertheless, both states with 

hypothesized effects and those without them experienced changes, and some changes were in the 

opposite direction from what was hypothesized. It would be unwise to use the data to support 

the view that SIG activities were responsible for these changes. 

 9

Although we hypothesized that nonseparation determinations and denials for all causes may 

increase as a result of SIG activities, these measures are more likely to be influenced by other, 

non-WPRS-specific factors. Thus, even if the data were consistent with our hypotheses, we 

would be less justified in attributing the changes to SIG activities, because most SIG activities 

focused on the WPRS system. An exception is North Carolina, which used its SIG to change 

service delivery through a program that is independent of the WPRS system. 
TABLE A.5 

NONSEPARATION DETERMINATIONS AND DENIALS 

(Per Continued Weeks Claimed) 

 Determinations Denials 

 Pre-SIG Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) Percent Change 

 Pre-SIG Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) Percent Change 

Alaska 3.8 4.0 4.9 2.5 2.9 13.5 California 7.1 3.8 –46.7 3.2 2.6 –17.5 Louisiana 3.2 2.6 –19.8 2.9 2.4 –17.8 Maryland 8.1 9.4 16.0 2.3 2.4 4.9 Minnesota 1.8 1.7 –2.4 1.6 1.7 6.1 North Carolina 2.9 2.1 –28.5 2.2 1.6 –30.4 New York 2.5 1.3 –46.1 1.3 0.8 –42.3 South Carolina 0.9 0.8 –12.4 0.6 0.5 –10.7 Washington 1.8 2.5 40.0 1.3 2.0 49.9 Wisconsin 4.8 4.1 –13.6 2.8 2.8 –1.5 West Virginia 1.3 1.3 –2.3 0.7 0.8 21.9 SOURCE: The data on determinations and denials are reported to the Unemployment Insurance Service on the ETA-207 report. The 

data on continued weeks claimed are reported on the ETA-5159 report. 

NOTE: The pre-SIG level is the average for the first six months of 1998 and 1999. The SIG level is the average for the first six 

months of 2001, which are the last six months of the SIG grant period. 

A.14 
TABLE A.6 

NONSEPARATION DETERMINATIONS AND DENIALS 

FOR PROFILING REFERRAL REFUSALS 

(Per 10,000 Continued Weeks Claimed) 

 Determinations Denials 

Pre-SIG Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) Percent Change 

 Pre-SIG Level 

(Percent) 

SIG Level 

(Percent) Percent Change 

Alaska 12.79 0.00 –100.0 11.65 0.00 –100.0 California 22.13 16.41 –25.8 4.43 7.23 63.1 Louisiana 11.10 10.15 –8.6 11.10 10.15 –8.6 Maryland 7.07 4.80 –32.1 3.88 2.81 –27.6 Minnesota 0.93 2.59 179.3 0.92 2.59 182.4 North Carolina 0.33 3.83 1,066.0 0.26 3.52 1,254.9 New York 0.90 0.58 –36.1 0.25 0.39 54.9 South Carolina 4.59 18.50 302.7 1.65 8.13 391.8 Washington 0.00 0.00 n.a. 0.00 0.00 n.a. Wisconsin 4.09 5.70 39.3 1.79 3.52 96.7 West Virginia 0.89 0.78 –11.7 0.27 0.45 66.8 SOURCE: The data on determinations and denials are reported to the Unemployment Insurance Service on the ETA-207 report. The 

data on continued weeks claimed are reported on the ETA-5159 report. 

NOTE: The pre-SIG level is the average for the first six months of 1998 and 1999. The SIG level is the average for the first six 

months of 2001, which are the last six months of the SIG grant period. 

n.a. = Not applicable. 

A.15 
A.16

3. Summary 

We examined state-level data reported to DOL to try to detect the effects of SIG activities 

on UI exhaustion rates, UI durations, referrals for and receipt of services, and determinations and 

denials. We hypothesized that SIG activities would lead to decreases in exhaustion rates and 

benefit durations in all states, and to increases in referrals to and receipt of services in some 

states. We also hypothesized that several states would have increases in nonseparation 

determination and denial rates, for profiling referral refusals or for all causes. 

This data analysis was unsuccessful, however; we could not detect consistent, systematic 

patterns in the data over time. Many possible reasons for this exist, such as the effects of other 

factors on claimant outcomes, changes in the quality of the data, and the use of state-level data 

when SIG activities in some states were conducted only in some local offices. The data, 

therefore, cannot be used either to support or to refute our hypothesis that SIG activities led to 

observable changes in claimant outcomes. 
APPENDIX B 

DESCRIPTIONS OF AND CONTACT INFORMATION FOR 

INNOVATIVE STATE ACTIVITIES 

B.3

Glossary: 

AJB = America’s Job Bank 

ES = Employment Service 

ETA = Employment and Training Administration 

UI = Unemployment Insurance 

WBA = Weekly Benefit Amount 

WIA = Workforce Investment Act 

WPRS = Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services 
B.4

I. IMPROVEMENTS TO OR INNOVATIVE PRACTICES RELATED TO THE 

IDENTIFICATION AND SELECTION OF CLAIMANTS MOST IN NEED 

OF REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

Innovation: Profiling After the Determination of Monetary Eligibility 

Objective: Profiling after the determination of monetary eligibility allows claimants 

to receive WPRS services earlier in their claims process than when 

profiling occurs after the first payment. 

State: Minnesota 

 

Description: As of April 2001, Minnesota’s profiling occurs after monetary eligibility 

is determined rather than after the first payment. Claimants with pending 

monetary determinations, about two to three percent of claimants, are put 

in a “wrap file” for up to 21 days. If they become monetarily eligible 

during this time, they are added to the profiling list. Claimants whose 

monetary eligibility issues are not resolved in that time are dropped from 

the wrap file and are not put on the profiling list. To keep the profiling 

process simpler, Minnesota decided against recalculating the profiling 

score for claimants whose calculation of base period earnings changes 

after the initial monetary determination. 

 The state includes on the profiling lists claimants with holds on their 

claims because of nonmonetary separation issues or denials. A profiling 

score is calculated for these claimants, and the local office screens that 

display the profiling lists show that they have pending eligibility issues or 

have been denied benefits. The central office gave discretion to the local 

offices in how to handle these claimants, so local office staff can tailor 

their procedures based on their judgment of the potential advantages and 

disadvantages of providing services to these claimants. In practice, offices 

with the capacity to serve these claimants often invite them to orientation 

workshops. However, offices with capacity constraints usually do not call 

them in; instead, the local office staff skip past them on the lists to select 

other claimants. 

Contact: Jim Hegman 

Phone: (651) 296-4910 

 E-mail: JHegman@ngwmail.des.state.mn.us 
B.5

Innovation: Use of Separate Profiling Models for Claimants with Different Potential 

Durations 

Objective: Though claimants with short potential durations had previously been 

excluded from the profiling selection pool, Minnesota added them to it to 

allow more claimants to participate in WPRS services. 

State: Minnesota 

Description: Before April 2001, Minnesota’s profiling model excluded claimants 

whose potential duration was shorter than 26 weeks. Since then, the state 

has used four separate models for claimants with potential duration equal 

to 26 weeks, 23 to 25 weeks, 19 to 22 weeks, and 11 to 18 weeks. (The 

recent proportions of unattached claimants in these four groups are 66, 10, 

10, and 14 percent, respectively.) The models have different weights for 

the claimant characteristics. Using separate models based on claimants’

potential durations allows the state to target reemployment services to 

claimants with the longest potential duration when resources are 

constrained. This can have a greater effect on the number of weeks of 

benefits paid and expenditures from the trust fund. At the same time, 

offices can serve claimants with shorter potential durations when 

resources are not constrained. 

 Within each of these four categories, claimants are ranked from highest 

profiling score to lowest. Those with full potential durations are highest 

on the list that local offices and one-stops use to select claimants for 

services, followed by those with long, medium, and short durations. Each 

group has a different threshold, above which claimants may be required to 

participate in services and below which their participation is voluntary. 

The state is re-sorting the lists so that all claimants who are above their 

model-specific threshold will be higher on the list than claimants below it. 

This re-sorting will make it easier for staff to identify and select claimants 

whose participation is required. 

 Minnesota’s policy is for local offices and one-stops to call in all 

claimants on their profiling lists when possible. Especially in offices that 

have or can develop the capacity to serve more claimants, this policy 

means that the claimants with fewer than 26 weeks of potential benefits, 

who would not have received profiling services prior to the change, now 

may receive them. 

 In local offices that are unable to serve all claimants on the list, claimants 

with 26 weeks of potential benefits are more likely to be served than 

shorter-duration claimants, because orientation leaders generally work 

down the list when selecting claimants to invite. Many offices are able to 

invite to orientation workshops at least some claimants whose 
B.6

participation is voluntary. These workshops often are slightly tailored to 

these claimants who may be at less risk of benefit exhaustion. 

Contact: Jim Hegman 

 Phone: (651) 296-4910 

 E-mail: JHegman@ngwmail.des.state.mn.us 

Innovation: Improved Accuracy in Selecting Profiled Claimants 

Objective: To prevent errors in selection for profiling and allow for the correction of 

errors, the state implemented data system modifications and trained staff. 

State: Alaska

Description: Because of previous coding errors, some claimants who should have been 

called in for profiling services were not. In addition, their profiling scores 

could not be updated to reflect corrected information. To address these 

problems, the state modified its data system to include computerized 

checks of registration codes. In addition, the state changed the profiling 

pool to a “dynamic pool” that allows updated information on claimants to 

be entered into the profiling model as claimants’ scores are recalculated 

weekly for the six weeks they may be in the profiling selection pool. As a 

result of training of UI call center staff on criteria for registration coding 

and these programming changes, claimants who are at high risk of long 

periods of unemployment and who have been miscoded are now 

reclassified as eligible for WPRS services. 

Contact: Margie Germain-Antrim

Phone: (907) 465-5931 

 E-mail: margie_germain-antrim@labor.state.ak.us 

Innovation: Survey of State Profiling Models 

 

Objective: The state conducted a survey of state profiling models to inform the 

development of their new profiling model and to provide a resource for 

others states in developing and updating their models. 

State: New York 

Description: The survey covers the details of other states’ WPRS systems. The survey 

was conducted on-line and collected information on the variables used in 

the model as well as the type of model used. They surveyed all states and 

received responses from about half. 

 

Contact: Laura Close 
B.7

Phone: 518-457-6574 

 E-mail: laura.close@labor.state.ny.us 

Innovation: Simplifying the Process to Update the WPRS Model 

Objective: Simplifying the process to update the WPRS model is expected to save 

staff time in conducting the updates and to facilitate future model changes 

that will ensure that WPRS services target claimants with the highest risk 

of benefit exhaustion. 

State: West Virginia 

Description: When designing its WPRS model, West Virginia developed a numeric 

“key” for each claimant. The key was a linear combination of claimant 

characteristics, such as the level of education or the WBA. The values for 

the variables (or transformations of the variables) were strung together by 

being multiplied by a power of 10 to become one number, the key. As 

with WPRS regression models, these keys then mapped the claimant 

characteristics to a profiling score. Although this translation of claimant 

characteristics into a profiling score may seem straightforward, it made 

updating West Virginia’s model complex, because the state used 14 

industry-specific models, which produced about 40,000 different values 

for the key. As part of the state’s efforts to convert the state’s 14 models 

to 1 model, the state added an equation to the mainframe so that claimant 

characteristics could be multiplied by the appropriate coefficients and 

directly converted to a score. Room in the equation was made for extra 

categories for existing variables and for extra variables (which currently 

have a value of zero for all claimants), so that future changes to the model 

could be incorporated more easily. 

 

Contact: Contact information not currently available. 

 

II. IMPROVEMENTS TO OR INNOVATIVE PRACTICES RELATED TO 

REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES 

Innovation: Orientation Workshop Materials

Objective: To ensure consistency in the content and format of the orientation 

workshops, the state developed a video, CD, facilitators’ guide, and 

participant workbook.

State: Louisiana 
B.8

Description: Louisiana developed these materials to enhance its six-hour orientation 

workshop. The video is 15 to 20 minutes long and contains five parts. A 

workshop facilitator can show part of the video, stop it, conduct exercises, 

and then return to it. The five parts of the video are (1) self-assessment 

(work history, education, hobbies, and goals); (2) resume preparation 

(what type of resume, basic rules); (3) job search (be organized and 

efficient, network, Job Service, telephone techniques); (4) job interview 

(prepare, know about company, practice, be positive); and (5) afterinterview checklist (filling out applications, test-taking, keeping records). 

The video was distributed to facilitators at training sessions held for 

workshop facilitators. 

 

 The state revised the facilitators’ guide to be used with the new video. 

The guide, designed to be concise and comprehensive, includes 

information on the purpose of the workshop, general instructions, 

“cardinal rules,” and procedures for conducting the workshop. These 

procedures incorporate the use of the video and suggest activities relating 

to each section. 

 The state also developed a self-paced CD that job seekers can use to guide 

themselves through the workshop materials. This CD is available for use 

at local offices, although it cannot replace attendance at a required 

workshop. 

 In addition, the state developed a participant workbook to accompany the 

video and the facilitators’ guide. The workbook contains information and 

exercises corresponding to the five parts of the video. Participants can use 

the workbook both during the workshop and at home. 

Contact: Pete Lopez 

Phone: (225) 342-2349 

 E-mail: rlopez@ldol.state.la.us 

Innovation: Local Office Review of Reemployment Workshops 

Objective: To better serve clients, local office staff reviewed their reemployment 

workshops and revised or added workshops. 

State: Wisconsin 

Description: Local offices that received extra staff through the SIG reviewed their 

orientation and reemployment workshops. The state asked that they 

review their workshop materials and offerings to identify and develop new 

workshops and to revise and update existing ones, if needed. Some 

examples of new workshops were (1) Goal Setting; (2) Attitudes, Values, 
B.9

and Decisions—to reflect on attitudes in relation to work situations; (3) 

Skills Review—an assessment of skills and interests; (4) Internet Job 

Search; and (5) Mock Interview—including a videotaped interview. Some 

common revisions to workshops included (1) creating a more interactive 

format; (2) incorporating Internet materials and resources; and (3) 

addressing issues that older workers face. 

Contact: Ron Danowski 

Phone: 608-266-7406 

 E-mail: DANOWRO@dwd.state.wi.us 

Innovation: Revamp the job search workshop manual and format to make it more 

interactive. 

 Objective: To engage participants better, thereby making the workshop more useful 

to claimants and helpful in producing improved reemployment outcomes. 

 State: Maryland 

 Description: Maryland developed a new manual and format for its 10-hour job search 

workshop. The new workshop emphasizes experiential learning through 

group exercises in which the participants discover the concepts themselves 

instead of having the instructor present them, as in the old workshop. The 

instructors function more like facilitators than presenters. The new 

workshops are also larger than the old ones (20 to 30 participants) so that 

the mix of issues and diversity of the groups is greater. The workshop has 

four parts: (1) learning about yourself, (2) learning about the labor 

market, (3) learning how to look for a job (resume, application, and 

interview), and (4) learning what is available to help you look for a job. 

The manual is divided into modules that can easily be modified and 

replaced, and new modules can be inserted as desired. 

 Contact: Paulette Hall 

 Phone: 410-767-2173 

 E-mail: phall@carrernet.state.md.us 

 

 

Innovation: An Assessment Tool That Focuses on Job Search Readiness 

Objective: A new tool that assesses job search readiness is designed to assist staff in 

directing claimants to reemployment service workshops so that their time 

unemployed is reduced and they are able to find better jobs. 

State: Washington 
B.10

Description: Washington state staff wanted to better identify and assess weaknesses in 

claimants’ job search skills and, to address those weaknesses, to direct 

claimants to reemployment services more effectively. To do so, the state 

strengthened its Job Search Readiness Inventory. This inventory fills a 

gap in service delivery, as it focuses on job search readiness rather than 

job readiness. The inventory contains five modules: (1) skills 

identification, (2) job search techniques, (3) resumes and applications, (4) 

labor market knowledge, and (5) interviewing skills. 

 State staff developed an intranet pilot version of the inventory that would 

aid in the creation of reemployment plans. If the inventory were 

implemented this way, claimants could access the tool, and the state could 

track service receipt and client outcomes, because data could be captured 

electronically. However, pilot tests revealed that local office staff prefer 

to use a paper version of the inventory during orientation workshops. For 

these staff, this version is an easier and more practical tool for helping 

claimants identify deficiencies in their job search skills and for referring 

them to voluntary workshops that can address their needs. 

Contact: Felix D’Allesandro 

Phone: (360) 438-4810 

 E-mail: FDAllesandro@ESD.WA.GOV 

Innovation: Choices Software, Distribution, and Training 

 

Objective: To help claimants make better career choices by deciding on a career 

direction, understanding whether that career is in demand in the labor 

market, and determining how to update their skills, the state provided 

computer-based career exploration tools. 

State: New York 

Description: The state distributed Choices software to all local offices and taught staff 

how to use it. Choices is a career exploration software package that 

includes assessments, such as interest and skills checklists, and job search 

assistance, such as resume and interviewing tips. It can be used with 

minimal staff assistance or independently by job seekers after a brief 

introduction by staff. All local offices received site licenses for Choices. 

In addition, claimants can access Choices on the Internet once they have 

signed up at their local offices and obtained an access code. 

Contact: Patty Shaw 

Phone: 518-485-6202 

 E-mail: usapls@labor.state.ny.us 
B.11

Innovation: Comprehensive Assessment Tool 

Objective: This tool is designed to help local office staff identify claimants’ needs 

that may affect reemployment prospects and direct claimants to services 

either at the one-stop or in the community. One key potential advantage 

of the assessment is that it encourages claimants to think early in the 

unemployment spell about a broad range of potential barriers to and goals 

for job search. 

State: Minnesota 

Description: Minnesota worked with a university psychologist who analyzed 

administrative records data and survey data completed both during local 

office visits and about six months later. This research formed the basis for 

the assessment tool tailored to identify the needs of claimants at risk of 

benefit exhaustion. This tool covers social and psychological issues, such 

as the claimant’s social support structure, attitudes towards being 

unemployed, and self-image, in addition to job search activities and labor 

market experiences. 

 Because of the sensitivity of the information covered in the assessment 

tool, it will be mailed to claimants along with the orientation letter so they 

can complete it at home. Claimants will be instructed to bring the tool to 

the orientation workshop. Reemployment services staff will meet 

individually with claimants to review their needs and guide them to 

appropriate services. Although the sharing of both nonsensitive and 

sensitive information could help staff and claimants work together to 

identify appropriate services, the state will not require claimants to share 

their assessment answers with staff. 

Contact: Jim Hegman 

Phone: (651) 296-4910 

 E-mail: JHegman@ngwmail.des.state.mn.us 

Innovation: Follow-Up Reminders 

Objective: To increase claimants’ participation in additional reemployment services, 

selected local offices made follow-up contacts with claimants who were in 

the 12th week of their UI claims. 

State: Wisconsin 

Description: In one area of the state, two local offices systematically followed up with 

profiled claimants 12 weeks after selection for WPRS services. They 

reminded claimants of the resources available to assist them in their job 

search and prompted them to pursue or redirect their job search while they 
B.12

still had UI benefits. Staff sent a letter and followed up with a phone call. 

Although some claimants contacted in these follow-up efforts returned for 

services, many had become employed by the time of the contact or were 

not interested. Generally, the state and local offices concluded that a large 

number of claimants did not return for more services as a result of the 

follow-up efforts. These formal efforts were discontinued after the SIG. 

Contact: Ron Danowski 

Phone: 608-266-7406 

 E-mail: DANOWRO@dwd.state.wi.us 

Innovation: Using Case Managers to Work with Claimants with the Highest WPRS 

Scores 

Objective: Providing intensive case management follow-up services to claimants with 

high profiling scores was designed to reduce the UI durations of these 

claimants at high risk of benefit exhaustion. 

State: South Carolina 

Description: South Carolina provided intensive follow-up services in some of the 

offices with the largest claims loads. Claimants with profiling scores of 

0.50 or higher—about half of those on the state’s WPRS profiling lists—

were targeted for these additional services. The eight caseworkers who 

provided these services tried to schedule a first meeting with targeted 

claimants within a week of their WPRS orientation. Using work search 

plans as a basis for service delivery, the caseworkers then provided oneon-one services, including resume assistance, instruction on specific 

features of the resource room, and searches every few days for job orders 

matches. Some also conducted cold calls to potential employers on behalf 

of their assigned claimants. Although these caseworkers generally 

encouraged voluntary participation, the UI eligibility of a claimant who 

refused to work with the caseworker could be investigated. 

Contact: Jesse Hill 

 Phone: (803) 737-2607 

 E-mail: jhill@sces.org

Innovation: Inclusion of an Internet Module in the Orientation Workshop 

Objective: To help claimants find jobs within their occupations, learn about the 

potential to work in different occupations, and use information on the 

labor market and specific employers, California developed and pilot-tested 

a module on the Internet in its profiling orientation workshop. Ultimately, 

this module was expected to decrease the unemployment spells of 
B.13

claimants receiving WPRS services by teaching them, early in their spells, 

computer skills to access Internet-based job search resources. 

State: California 

Description: The state developed this Internet module by reviewing relevant literature 

and Web sites, assessing claimants’ computer and Internet use through 

field survey research, and talking with other service providers about how 

to conduct Internet job search training. In-house staff then drafted the 45- 

to 60-minute lesson plan, pilot-tested the module in 12 local offices, 

provided appropriate computer equipment to these offices when it was not 

previously available, and trained staff. 

 Central office staff had considered, but rejected, several other ways to 

provide Internet-related information to claimants. Despite the decision to 

give computer presentations during the workshop, staff need to have a 

back-up plan to convey as much of the information as possible during the 

workshop if the computers are not working. 

 During the pilot-testing period of the computer presentations, some staff 

were uncomfortable presenting the Internet module and emphasized it less 

during the orientation workshops than the lesson plan required. Further, a 

high level of turnover among workshop leaders made it difficult for the 

state to ensure that staff were adequately trained to give comprehensive 

presentations and handle unanticipated deviations from the plan. 

 The state found that participants rated workshops that followed the 

Internet curriculum more positively than those that did not follow it. 

Nevertheless, most claimants who had no or below-average Internet skills 

prior to the workshop reported being unlikely to use the Internet for their 

job search even after participating in the Internet module. In addition, the 

state did not find any systematic differences in the exhaustion rates or 

entered employment rates between SIG pilot sites and nonpilot sites. 

However, it concluded that the SIG Internet module was associated with 

an increase in the number of claimants who received Wagner-Peyser Act 

reemployment services. Problems implementing the module, difficulty 

targeting services to claimants most in need, and the workshop’s emphasis 

on training may have led to these null effects. In addition, non-SIG 

offices probably expanded their discussion of the Internet around the time 

that all offices statewide increased access to the Internet in their resource 

rooms, which may have reduced the differences between the SIG and nonSIG sites. 

Contact: Tim Reynaga 

Phone: (916) 654-9496 

 E-mail: treynaga@edd.ca.gov 
B.14

Innovation: America’s Job Bank (AJB) CD

Objective: The CD was developed to address the need for better guidance on using 

AJB and to encourage more job seekers to use the Internet for their job 

search. 

State: Louisiana 

Description: This CD, which runs for 9 to 10 minutes, guides the user through the 

different ways to use the AJB to search for jobs, either by job title, job 

order number, military code, or keyword. The CD generates a lot of visual 

activity to keep the job seeker’s attention. While it can be used by an 

individual job seeker or as part of a workshop, it is generally expected to 

be used in self-guided instruction. The state provided this information on 

AJB separate from the orientation session, because the materials may not 

be relevant to all participants in this workshop. One challenge in 

developing these types of materials is keeping up to date with the everchanging Internet. 

Contact: Pete Lopez 

 Phone: (225) 342-2349 

 E-mail: rlopez@ldol.state.la.us 

Innovation: Staffing Increases in Targeted Areas

Objective: To address statewide staffing imbalances in local offices and to allocate 

services where needed, the state added staff in local offices in two urban 

areas to conduct profiling workshops. 

State: Wisconsin 

Description: Multiple local offices within each of the two urban areas, with high 

numbers of unserved profiled claimants, gained staff to address the need 

for reemployment services among profiled claimants. In one large urban 

area, staff were added in locations that had not previously provided 

profiling services. State and local staff in this area worked together to 

determine a sensible and efficient way to allocate the new staff to serve 

neighborhoods that would be convenient to claimants. State staff tracked 

the number of profiled claimants selected for service in each local office to 

monitor increases in service delivery. As expected, the offices with 

additional staff were able to increase service delivery proportionally to the 

increase in staff.

Contact: Ron Danowski 

Phone: 608-266-7406 
B.15

 E-mail: DANOWRO@dwd.state.wi.us 

Innovation: Establish a temporary program to provide intensive, staff-assisted 

reemployment services to workers laid off in the textile, apparel, and 

tobacco industries. 

 Objective: To target resources for reemployment services on three industries (textiles, 

apparel, and tobacco) that were experiencing plant closing and large layoff 

and to reduce the unemployment durations of workers from those 

industries. 

 State: North Carolina 

 Description: The SIG grant in North Carolina was used to set up a new, temporary 

program—Reemployment Services for textiles, apparel, and tobacco 

(RSTAT)—that is separate from WPRS and that provides reemployment 

services to workers laid off from these industries. The goal of the program 

is to focus intensive, staff-assisted services on this target group. SIG 

funds were allocated to local offices that were experiencing plant closings 

in one or more of these industries. The funds are used to pay for staff for 

varying lengths of time, depending on the size and duration of the local 

layoffs. Claimants from the targeted firms were identified at the time of 

the initial claim and enrolled in the program. They attended an orientation 

session to learn about the program and then participated in a two- to fourhour job search workshop. The claimants were then scheduled to return to 

the office every two weeks to see a staff member, as long as they remained 

on the UI program. During those visits, they were asked about their job 

search, given referrals, and in some cases given job development. 

 Contact: Ruthie B. Packenham 

 Phone: 919-733-6264 

III. IMPROVEMENTS TO OR INNOVATIVE PRACTICES RELATED TO 

COORDINATION AMONG PROGRAMS AND AGENCIES 

Innovation: Improve the tracking/scheduling system. 

 Objective: To make it easier for local office staff to call claimants in for services, 

reschedule them if necessary, and report no-shows to UI, thereby speeding 

the delivery of services. 

 State: Maryland 
B.16

 Description: The local offices now use a new PC-based tracking/scheduling system that 

receives from the state’s mainframe a weekly download with lists of 

claimants and their profiling scores. Local office staff use the system to 

select claimants for the state’s job search workshop and to send them a 

call-in letter. The system can also be used to reschedule claimants who 

call in because they cannot attend or who do not attend a scheduled 

workshop. Local offices can easily customize both initial and follow-up 

letters. UI is informed of no-shows through an electronic link. This 

system was changed further to provide lists of all claimants who file initial 

claims, so that they could be called in for orientation sessions. 

 Contact: Paulette Hall 

 Phone: 410-767-2173 

 E-mail: phall@carrernet.state.md.us 

Innovation: An E-mail System Between UI Call Centers and One-Stops 

Objective: The objectives of this new e-mail system are to ensure that (1) 

adjudicators in UI call centers know which claims to investigate when UI 

eligibility issues arise, and (2) they receive a standardized set of 

information on them from local offices and one-stops. 

State: Minnesota 

Description: When Minnesota changed its UI system from in-person filing to one in 

which about half of initial claims are filed by mail and the rest by 

telephone or through the Internet, adjudication staff were no longer 

working in local offices. Information on whether claimants attended an 

orientation session when called in was entered into the UI system by local 

office service delivery staff. However, adjudicators did not know which 

claims to investigate unless they were explicitly told. 

 The state addressed this situation by developing a system to e-mail 

information to adjudicators on no-shows for services. Local office staff 

use a screen in their data system to record a standard set of information on 

claimants who need adjudication, including what they have found out 

about claimants’ reasons for not reporting. This information is then emailed to one of the call centers, based on the social security number, and 

an adjudicator makes a nonmonetary eligibility determination based on the 

information provided. 

Contact: Jim Hegman 

Phone: (651) 296-4910 

 E-mail: JHegman@ngwmail.des.state.mn.us 
B.17

Innovation: Improved Enforcement of WPRS Participation 

Objective: To better enforce participation in WPRS activities and to help UI and ES 

staff better manage adjudication workloads, the state clarified the roles of 

ES and UI and established new systems for tracking and enforcement of 

WPRS participation. 

State: Alaska 

Description: These improvements clarified which staff are responsible for rescheduling 

claimants who did not show up for a workshop and for adjudicating these 

cases. ES staff are responsible for recording nonattendance in the data 

system, communicating information to UI, and rescheduling claimants 

who call in after missing an activity. UI staff are responsible for factfinding and adjudication of claimants who did not show up for a scheduled 

WPRS activity. Several computer enhancements facilitated the roles of 

ES in rescheduling activities and of UI in adjudicating cases. In addition, 

a new communication system allows ES staff to send e-mails to a central 

UI account that then distributes them to UI staff. 

Contact: Margie Germain-Antrim

Phone: (907) 465-5931 

 E-mail: margie_germain-antrim@labor.state.ak.us 

Innovation: Improved Enforcement of WPRS Participation 

Objective: To better enforce participation in WPRS activities, the state set up new 

procedures to allow ES staff to initiate call-ins for services and holds on 

UI payments. 

State: New York 

Description: ES staff can now call in claimants for WPRS services and automatically 

place a hold on the UI payments to any who do not show up when 

required to. The state also mails these claimants a letter that explains why 

their benefits are on hold and stresses their need to attend the activity they 

missed. Although larger system wide changes in the data system are 

anticipated, these procedures were implemented in the state’s existing data 

system to address the problem of nonattendance. 

Contact: Laura Close 

Phone: 518-457-6574 

 E-mail: laura.close@labor.state.ny.us 

 
B.18

Innovation: Tracking System Modifications 

Objective: To improve the ability of local office staff to determine which claimants 

need follow-up information on services and to gather information on 

obtained employments, Louisiana developed several new computerized 

reports.

State: Louisiana 

Description: These new reports list claimants who received services recently without 

obtaining employment, claimants with job referrals, claimants who did not 

show up for required WPRS activities, and claimants who recently 

attended workshops. 

Contact: Janet Odum 

 Phone: (225) 342-3145 

 E-mail: jodum@ldol.state.la.us 

 

Innovation: The Development of Frontline Tracking Systems 

Objective: These new reports provide more timely frontline and management 

feedback to help local office staff manage and monitor workloads and 

determine which clients need follow-up calls. 

State: South Carolina 

Description: South Carolina developed several intranet reports that list (1) claimants 

who filed for UI benefits each day; (2) a claimant status report showing 

the initial claim date, profiling score, WPRS activities, referrals, whether 

claimant was placed in employment, and the last UI claim date; and (3) 

claimants who are continuing to receive UI benefits. 

 South Carolina also added a local-office-level report showing the number 

of claimants selected for WPRS, the number attending orientation, the 

number completing an eligibility review, the number placed, and the 

number obtaining employment. 

Contact: L. Layne Waters 

 Phone: (803) 737-3048 

 E-mail: lwaters@sces.org 

Innovation: Revised Reporting, 9049 

Objective: To improve the accuracy of the reporting data, and to promote 

performance-based accountability and goal setting, the state improved 
B.19

tabulations for the 9048 and 9049 reports and developed new versions of 

the 9049. 

State: Alaska 

Description: Alaska made several improvements to its federal 9048 and 9049 reports by 

clarifying data definitions for them and documenting them for future 

reference. To provide more feedback to state and local staff for the 9048 

report, the state added tabulations by the number of transactions (in 

addition to the number of people, as federally required) for: referrals to 

jobs, job placements, obtained employment, services provided, and clients 

excused because they found employment before they received their first 

service. On the 9049 report, the state created four new versions of the 

report, in addition to the federally required report. These are restricted to 

claimants who “first received reemployment services” rather than those 

who were “first referred to reemployment services,” and they can be 

generated for different time periods and claimant subgroups. All reports 

and their data specifications are accessible to staff through the 

department’s intranet. These reports are available through the local office 

and are intended to guide managers in determining expectations for 

service levels. 

Contact: Margie Germain-Antrim 

Phone: (907) 465-5931 

 E-mail: margie_germain-antrim@labor.state.ak.us 

Innovation: A Data Warehouse 

Objective: The development of a “data warehouse”—to link the UI data system, wage 

records, the ES data system, the Labor Exchange, and the WIA data 

system—has the potential to improve service delivery and monitoring and 

to allow the development of better program policies. The data warehouse 

can help staff think beyond their own programs and use cross-program 

data for analysis and performance measurement at the local office and 

state levels. These types of data-linking activities can, more generally, 

further the one-stop concept of seamless delivery of services. 

State: Washington 

Description: Data systems for different programs historically have resided on different 

computer platforms and therefore did not link well together. Over the 

course of several years, Washington staff have developed a prototype 

online, interactive Web-based system (the “Management Decision 

System”) based on linked data systems. This system is similar to the ETA 

9048 and 9049 reports but is more sophisticated. For example, monthly 

cohorts can be tracked by key WPRS measures (such as numbers profiled, 
B.20

put in the selection pool, referred for services, or exempted), as well as the 

services they received. In addition, demographic and UI program 

characteristics, pre- and post-UI earnings, and pre- and post-UI industry 

and occupation, plus changes in some of these measures, for each cohort 

are available. Detailed information on reasons claimants are screened out 

of profiling, and a distribution of claimants by score are available. The 

data can be split into subgroups for a more detailed analysis (such as on 

subgroups based on profiling status). 

 The development of a data warehouse is likely to be extremely complex 

and, in Washington, has involved the need to resolve both technical and 

political issues. Technical issues included the need to coordinate 

calendars of activities and standardize data definitions. Coordinating 

calendars is necessary since UI reports are weekly, ES reports monthly, 

and WIA training reports quarterly. Standardizing data definitions 

includes the development of a common data dictionary. The political 

issues included the need to receive from each program an agreement to 

initiate participation and support the development and maintenance of the 

warehouse. 

 The ability to demonstrate the usefulness of data-linking to program 

administrators and policymakers is likely to determine the success of this 

type of comprehensive undertaking. In the long run, the benefits to be 

gained will depend on the amount of interaction between program staff 

and analytic/information staff and their understanding of important policy 

questions. The greatly increased access to data through the data 

warehouse will allow management staff to ask more-sophisticated 

questions than they could before. However, these staff may need to be 

trained to identify important measures for managing their programs. 

Contact: Felix D’Allesandro 

Phone: (360) 438-4810 

 E-mail: FDAllesandro@ESD.WA.GOV 

Innovation: Improved Coordination Within and Between Programs 

Objective: To enhance service delivery, the state worked to improve coordination 

within and between programs by sharing information and expertise. 

State: Alaska 

Description: To improve coordination within ES and with other programs, the state 

conducted monthly teleconferences and statewide yearly training 

workshops. These activities are intended to build relationships between 

local and central office staff and between staff of different agencies, share 

information, and increase knowledge across program areas. Staff from 
B.21

several programs, in addition to ES (including UI, Veterans, Job Training, 

and Vocational Rehabilitation) participated in teleconferences and training 

workshops. 

 

Contact: Margie Germain-Antrim

Phone: (907) 465-5931 

 E-mail: margie_germain-antrim@labor.state.ak.us 

 

Innovation: Using Field Coordinators for Local Office Monitoring and Technical 

Assistance 

Objective: Field coordinators worked to improve communication and coordination 

between the central office and local offices by monitoring local office 

program procedures and helping local office and one-stop staff to manage 

their workloads and address program issues. 

State: South Carolina 

Description: South Carolina created two new full-time field coordinator positions to act 

as liaisons between the central office and the local offices. These field 

coordinators made technical assistance visits to the local offices to provide 

guidance on requirements for reemployment workshops, eligibility 

reviews, ongoing reemployment services, and procedures such as selecting 

and exempting profiled claimants. Over a two-year period, the 

coordinators shifted from visiting local offices frequently in person to 

making contact by telephone. Prior to the development of these positions, 

this type of technical assistance was not provided as consistently or as 

adequately to local offices. 

Contact: Jesse Hill 

 Phone: (803) 737-2607 

 E-mail: jhill@sces.org