Pennsylvania UC System Must Be Rebuilt Strategically After the Pandemic and Benefits Modernization

Traditionally, Pennsylvania’s Unemployment Compensation (UC) system was simple and effective. An unemployed worker went to an “unemployment office,” filed a claim, and got about the business of finding a new job. Along with declining administrative funding, that system started to erode at the beginning of this century. First, the local offices were replaced by centralized…

CLS logo, header reading The Clean Slate Screening Project: A Case Study in Scaling Up Record Clearing & Advocacy

The Clean Slate Screening Project: A Case Study

Legal services providers are frequently presented with the challenge of communicating complicated and evolving legal advice to large numbers of constituents. The Clean Slate Screening Project (CSSP), developed by Philadelphia-based Community Legal Services (CLS) in partnership with the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA), was conceived as a solution to that predicament when in 2018, the state…

ID.me presents barriers to unemployment insurance and other government benefits

During the pandemic, ID.me, a company providing digital identity credentials that promised to screen out fraudulent claims but “leave no identity behind,” emerged as a potential savior against rampant unemployment benefit fraud.  Since then, ID.me’s influence has increased, as numerous federal departments and scores of states have signed on for its services, including in the…