The District of Columbia’s Inspector General will audit D.C.’s Department of Employment Services, in response to complaints of technical glitches and poor communication, resulting in struggling unemployed workers going weeks or months without income.
In a joint oversight roundtable, D.C. Councilmembers Elissa Silverman and Robert White said employees had been asked to stay home to prevent spread of the coronavirus.
“That was an incredible sacrifice that we asked of our workers, but the unemployment insurance safety net was supposed to be there to help people make it through this time,” said Silverman.
Between mid-March and September 2020, more than 143,000 new claims for unemployment were filed in the District — five times the number filed in 2019.