As Wisconsin businesses closed this spring to slow the spread of COVID-19, jobless filings and phone calls flooded the Department of Workforce Development — too quickly for staff employees to keep up. But DWD Secretary Caleb Frostman remained optimistic.

Tagged with: Caleb Frostman Gov. Tony Evers unemployment Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development

Fewer than 1% of calls from Wisconsin residents who lost their jobs during the pandemic were answered by state officials overseeing unemployment benefits, and the Evers administration did not report important information to lawmakers showing the full scope of the problem, a new state audit shows.

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Gov. Tony Evers has in effect fired the leader of the state's workforce development agency, which has struggled for months to clear a massive backlog of unemployment claims since the pandemic hit Wisconsin.

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Possibly hundreds of laid-off Wisconsin workers with disabilities can now obtain the sort of federal aid that other unemployed workers have been able to receive during the pandemic.

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An unknown number of unemployed people in Wisconsin received too much, or not enough, in benefits from the state Department of Workforce in late April as it worked to process additional money in federal aid to help those suddenly out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic, an audit released Wednesday found.

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Wisconsin's unemployment rate dropped from 13.6% in April to 12% in May — a bit of positive economic news for the month when the state began to reopen more broadly after the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the governor's "safer at home" order.

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Wisconsin Republicans sparred with leaders in Gov. Tony Evers administration at a sometimes heated legislative hearing Wednesday, faulting them for not doing enough to quickly process unemployment claims during the pandemic.

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Gov. Tony Evers' call for the Republican-controlled Legislature to waive a one-week waiting period for the payment of unemployment benefits in the face of soaring claims will be an early test of how well the two sides can work together in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The Wisconsin Senate is scheduled to consider approving two of Gov. Tony Evers' Cabinet secretaries on Tuesday, votes that come just two months after Republicans fired the governor's agriculture secretary.

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Gov. Tony Evers on Friday announced appointments to a task force that will examine worker misclassification and payroll fraud in Wisconsin.

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