Republicans balked Wednesday at Gov. Tony Evers' call for a special legislative session next week to pass his plan for improving the state's unemployment-benefits system in the face of a massive backlog of pandemic-induced claims.

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Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development officials said on Thursday they've assigned the last few thousand undecided unemployment claims to adjudicators.

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Gov. Tony Evers' administration plans to clarify questions on unemployment-benefit applications starting this spring as it wrestles with a massive backlog of unprocessed claims resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.

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The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development was responsible for 11 of the 13 weeks it took, on average, to process unemployment claims filed since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to an audit released Monday.

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Wisconsin's unemployment rate rose to 5.7% in October from 5.4% in September as the coronavirus continues to rage across the state, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development reported on Thursday.

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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.

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Lawmakers this week will consider extending a series of pandemic-related rules intended to freeze employers' unemployment-insurance payments, waive job-search requirements for people receiving unemployment benefits and curtail the need for in-person fire and electrical inspections.

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A state task force on worker misclassification is questioning a proposed federal rule it argues would make it easier for employers to wrongly label workers independent contractors.

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Wisconsin's unemployment rate dropped from 6.3% in August to 5.4% in September, below the national rate but 2 points higher than a year ago as the state deals with a surge in coronavirus cases.

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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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