Untimely First Unemployment Benefit Payments

The objective of this audit was to determine the timeliness of first unemployment benefit payments from the Department of Commerce's Division of Employment Security (DES) during the period of January 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021 and if untimely, identify the causes of the untimely payments. We found that DES did not issue $438 million of first unemployment benefit payments timely during the period of January 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021.