Hawaiʻi Unemployment system: a thread

In 2012 I was contracted by Hawaiʻi DLIR to write a grant about one portal/application for unemployed to qualify for all possible benefits. 1/6

The idea was to have one intake site. This way, you didnʻt have to do multiple forms at multiple departments in-person - health care, child care, SNAP, unemployment, training, education, etc. Wasnʻt a new idea, btw. 2/6

The grant, $12 mil, would have given the state new IT infrastructure to support it, cut down on processing time, and allowed to recover more funding. Oh, and the unemployment numbers from the last Recession were still fresh and discussed. 3/6

Except the heads of different state departments didnʻt want to play. Budgets, staffing, territory. Whatever their reasons were, the project was killed. 8 years ago, that decision was made by people, who have never experienced the indignity of applying for unemployment. 4/6

Donʻt for a second believe that the current volume of unemployment claims was unexpected. The samples of the state IT infrastructure has been discussed for years, with every new administration/department head/mayor, etc. 5/6

So every time a state official says “unprecedented” or “unexpected”, they should apply for one state benefit at a time, using the current system. 6/6