To reimagine unemployment insurance services, start small
By: Rohan Bhobe
Tags: Covid 19, Public Interest Tech, Civictech, Government, Unemployment

To reimagine unemployment insurance services, start small

By Rohan Bhobe, Michelle Thong, and Kalvin Wang

We’ve seen over and over again how the failure of critical public services causes real harm, both physical and financial. The stories are too many to count, from Florida’s $77 million broken unemployment website to people in Georgia waiting 120 days to get their unemployment checks. It’s estimated that at the start of the pandemic, as many as 12 million people did not apply for unemployment because of the difficult application process. When we invest poorly in the delivery of government services, underserved communities end up paying the biggest cost. During the pandemic, Black workers are more likely to be unemployed but less likely to get unemployment benefits.

After witnessing the effects of sporadic and ad hoc legislation that left states scrambling to implement new assistance measures, we were excited to see Senator Ron Wyden’s new bill to upgrade the technical underpinnings of the country’s unemployment systems. This type of crisis response, if successful, could help millions and lay the foundations for a more resilient safety net in the future.

Nava Public Benefit Corporation got its start during a crisis with the HealthCare.gov rescue. We’ve since worked with some of the largest federal agencies and state benefits programs, from legacy modernization efforts to rolling out new digital services driven by legislation. And we agree with the Senator: Building modular, open-source, human-centered software is exactly how we should be creating equitable government services fit for the digital age.

Unfortunately, current unemployment websites are built by vendors who’ve charged states hundreds of millions of dollars and left places like Florida and Pennsylvania with brittle and broken systems. The status quo isn’t working. Government agencies, not vendors, should own their systems, and we’re excited to see the bill include creating a Department of Labor Digital Services Team — leveraging this in-house talent is critical to successful delivery. While big name vendors have largely failed, civil servants within federal agencies and groups like the United States Digital Service and 18F have spent years defining a better approach.

Senators Ron Wyden, Sherrod Brown, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Mark Warner, as you partner with states, we have one piece of advice: Start small.

As you’re assembling the four-state pilot team, we encourage you to build together with states from the start. Learn from real users as soon as possible, and seek feedback from underserved communities. Collaborate to build modular, well-crafted software and make use of scalable cloud infrastructure. Bake in principles you refer to, like open source, accessibility, and reusability from the start. Get components running in production and scale adoption and functionality out as you learn. The US Web Design System, built by USDS and 18F, is a great example of this practice. The design system was developed with real requirements and real implementation needs. The system was improved over time, had a clear path to adoption, and has since been used by state and federal agencies.