Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO determined the amount of unemployment insurance (UI) paid to military reservists, focusing on: (1) why UI claimants do not report reserve income; (2) the administrative and legislative options available to prevent future trust fund losses; and (3) how these options will affect reservists retention rates. GAO found that: (1) active UI claimants did not report more than $7 million in reserve income for fiscal year 1994; (2) the average amount of nonreported income varied from $273 to $959 per claimant, and resulted in UI benefit overpayments of $3.6 million; (3) most UI benefit overpayments went to Army Reserve personnel; (4) federal trust fund losses from the Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Servicemen Program totalled $1.2 million; (5) the UI system paid over $25 billion in benefits and received over $26 billion in state and federal unemployment tax revenues; (6) the integrity of the UI system is adversely affected by improperly paid benefits; (7) these overpayments hinder the UI systems ability to provide unemployment benefits, contribute to high state employer payroll taxes and federal outlays, and lower claimants benefit levels; (8) UI claimants do not report their reserve income because they do not understand the reporting requirements, receive improper information regarding their reporting responsibilities, and have incentives not to report reserve income; (9) claimants are rarely penalized for not reporting their reserve income; (10) states can withhold a portion of a reservists future benefits until applicable overpayments are repaid; (11) it is difficult to verify reservists benefit levels without online access to federal wage data; and (12) nonreporting of reserve wage income will not affect the militarys retention rates.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Creative Media Partners, LLC
ISBN-10
1287170250
ISBN-13
9781287170259
eBay Product ID (ePID)
166385006
Product Key Features
Book Title
Unemployment Insurance : Millions in Benefits Overpaid to Military Reservists