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The brief presents findings on the effects of 12-month information campaigns designed to increase employer awareness of Short-Time Compensation (STC) programs in Iowa and Oregon. The states ran their campaigns starting in mid-September 2014 in Iowa and late October 2014 in Oregon, and researchers tested the effects of this outreach using a random controlled trial (RCT) design in Iowa and the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon and a quasi-experimental design (QED) in Oregon outside of Portland.

Short-time compensation (STC), also known as work sharing, is an optional program within some state unemployment insurance systems. Under STC, employers experiencing a temporary reduction in business lower the average hours of employees in lieu of laying off workers. Employees whose hours are lowered receive Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits in proportion to the reduction in their hours, while businesses retain valued employees and avoid future recruitment and training costs.

The report of the Evaluation of the Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REA) Program, and as a precursor to an impact study analysis, describes the implementation of the REA program in the four states in which the evaluation study was conducted: Indiana, New York, Washington, and Wisconsin. This report and its analysis support the broader impact evaluation in two distinct ways. Most important, this report describes in detail the REA program as it was implemented across the four participating states during the study period.

Individuals who lose their jobs may have the skills and desire to start their own businesses. Some states have taken action to help unemployed workers create their own jobs by establishing Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) programs, which allow Unemployment Insurance (UI) eligible individuals who meet SEA program requirements to receive a weekly self-employment allowance while they are setting up their businesses. This allowance is equal in amount and duration to regular UI benefits.

A main goal of the U.S. Unemployment Insurance (UI) program is to provide temporary income support to workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Benefits supply only partial wage replacement and are time-limited, so as to balance providing income support during unemployment and preserving incentives for benefit recipients to return to work. Most UI claimants who begin receiving benefits during non-recessionary periods can collect them for up to 26 weeks.

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) program was designed to reduce financial hardships for unemployed workers, assist with reemployment, and ameliorate the negative effects of unemployment on the economy as a whole. The loss of a job poses major hardships for many workers and their families. They often need to begin a potentially challenging search for new employment and also adjust their spending patterns and seek other sources of income. For qualified unemployed workers, UI benefits can help reduce the urgency for such adjustments.

The U.S. Army and the U.S.

The recession that began in late 2007 posed major challenges for the U.S. labor market, including a high unemployment rate and a steep increase in unemployment durations. The federal policy response to the recession and the lingering weak labor market included substantial changes to the unemployment compensation (UC) system, which is administered as a partnership between states and the federal government. Twelve pieces of federal legislation affected the UC system from June 2008 to January 2013, the most comprehensive of which was the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

The report examines expansions to the unemployment compensation system that followed the onset of the Great Recession. Before the recession, eligible workers losing a job could collect up to 26 weeks of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in most states. Near the end of 2009, up to 99 weeks were available in high-unemployment states through the UI program, the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 2008 (EUC08) program, and the Extended Benefits (EB) program. The researchers' main analysis used administrative and survey data on 2,122 recipients in 12 states.

Typically, unemployed workers who have met their state’s eligibility criteria for benefits can receive up to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, which are intended to provide a financial cushion while the workers adapt to the loss of a job and household income. These state-funded benefits, often referred to as regular Unemployment Insurance (UI), are available regardless of the strength of the economy.