Page 1 GAO-25-108003 DOL Priority Recommendations
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Comptroller General
of the United States
May 7, 2025
The Honorable Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Secretary of Labor
U.S. Department of Labor
200 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20210
Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Labor
Dear Secretary Chavez-DeRemer:
Congratulations on your appointment. The purpose of this letter is to call your personal attention
to two areas based on GAO’s past work and 12 open priority recommendations, which are
enclosed.
1
Additionally, there are 98 other GAO open recommendations that we will continue to
work with your staff to address.
We are highlighting the following areas that warrant your timely and focused attention.
Specifically:
Enhancing unemployment insurance. The Department of Labor (DOL) needs to address
persistent unemployment insurance (UI) system issues that were exacerbated in the pandemic.
These issues pose significant risks to service delivery and expose the system to significant
financial losses through fraud and improper payments. We added this area to the High-Risk List
in 2022, noting that the UI system faced challenges meeting the needs of unemployed workers
and maintaining program integrity. In 2024, in response to the high-risk designation and
recommendation, DOL released a comprehensive transformation plan for the UI program. This
plan includes strategies to bolster state UI programs against fraud, build resilient and
responsive state IT systems, and deliver high-quality customer service. DOL officials reported
that 47 of the 53 strategies in the plan were completed or in progress as of December 2024.
To fully implement this recommendation, DOL should execute this plan by working with states to
complete actions that are currently in progress or planned, and assist Congress as needed to
further pursue efforts to transform the UI system. Further efforts and sustained action to address
recurring issues would help to stabilize the UI system and prevent future disruptions to UI
administration during economic downturns.
We also recommended that DOL measure states’ UI IT performance, such as determining
whether states were using cloud computing infrastructures to support their UI systems. DOL
published UI customer experience standards and metrics that are intended to help states
1
GAO considers a recommendation to be a priority if when implemented, it may significantly improve government
operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making
progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.
