Nationwide, four key federally funded workforce programs helped states provide reemployment services, such as career counseling and job search assistance, to millions of unemployment insurance (UI) claimants, according to data from July 2015 through June 2016, the most recent period available (see table). The six selected states GAO reviewed in-depth reported using these key programs to support th...

GAO's analysis of Department of Labor (DOL) data found that certain state administrative practices, such as reviewing a higher percentage of claimant-reported work search activities and frequent use of formal warnings, were associated with lower estimated work search overpayment rates for the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program. According to DOL data, 22 states were warning claimants after the fir...

Most states reported they were on target to meet the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act's (WIOA) requirement to spend 75 percent of their Program Year 2015 and 2016 youth grant funding to serve out-of-school youth, according to Department of Labor (DOL) data. Because deadlines had not arrived for the spending of state youth grant allotments for these program years, compliance could not be de...

Job Corps centers reported 13,673 safety and security incidents involving students from July 2016 to June 2017, according to GAO's analysis of the Department of Labor's (DOL) Employment and Training Administration's (ETA) data. Most reported incidents occurred onsite and involved recently enrolled male students under age 20. During that time, the program served about 79,000 students at 125 Job Cor...

Overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and administered by states, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Employment and Training (E&T) programs served about 0.5 percent of the approximately 43.5 million SNAP recipients in an average month of fiscal year 2016, according to the most recent USDA data available. These programs are generally designed to help SNAP recipients in...

The National Mediation Board (NMB), which facilitates labor relations for railroads and airlines, has implemented five of the eight recommendations GAO made in its December 2013 and February 2016 reports (see table). The three remaining recommendations—on information security, information privacy, and rail grievance arbitration—are not yet fully implemented.Regarding information security, GAO...

Federal agencies' efforts to implement Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) requirements related to regulations, program performance, and state planning aligned with most of the leading collaboration practices that GAO identified in its prior work, but could be enhanced in two areas. Officials from the Departments of Labor (DOL), Education (Education), and Health and Human Services (HHS...

The Department of Homeland Security issues temporary work permits to eligible foreign workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Current U.S. law requires DHS to set annual limits on the number of permits it issues and to stop issuing them by the end of calendar year 2019. Proposed legislation would make the permits available through the end of calendar year 2029. We testified t...

To improve safety in commercial fishing, many boats are required to be built and maintained under rules set by organizations that certify them in a process called "classing." Another certification process, called "alternative-to-class," was introduced in 2016. We examined costs and effectiveness of classing. Stakeholders agreed that classing increases costs, but there is limited data to quantify...

Department of Labor (DOL) data show that some states have formal warning policies that allow Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants to receive benefits after the first discovered occurrence of their failing to meet work search requirements while most states do not have such policies. As a result, states are inconsistent in whether they report such benefit payments as overpayments, which has an impa...