Trump proposes 5 weekly job searches to keep unemployment benefits

The Labor Department proposed a rule that would require unemployment insurance claimants to complete five work-search activities per week to receive benefits, CNBC reported.

The proposal would set a uniform federal baseline that exceeds the requirement in most states. Only four states currently require a minimum of five work searches per week, according to Michele Evermore, senior director of economic security and worker transitions at the National Employment Law Project. The remaining states require fewer. Federal law mandates that all states have a work-search requirement, but states set their own eligibility parameters.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling framed the proposal as an integrity measure. “This proposed rule helps jobseekers find work faster and ensures efficient use of taxpayer resources while improving the overall integrity of our unemployment system,” Sonderling said in a press release. “Unemployment insurance is meant to be temporary support while you find your next job, not a permanent taxpayer-funded paycheck,” he wrote on X. There is a 60-day public comment period before the rule can be finalized.

Consumer advocates said the rule would make it harder for job seekers to qualify and would impose costs on states. “Not only is the proposed change devastating to claimants who may not have five search options for every week they are unemployed, but it will likely cost states hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Evermore said. “Nearly all states will have to change their claimant intake forms, and with it, their technology. Many states will have to rewrite their laws to meet this rule.” She also called it “highly unusual for the Department of Labor to unilaterally change how states run their unemployment insurance systems absent clear direction from Congress.”

The rule comes at a difficult moment for job seekers. Labor economists have described the current job market as “low hire, low fire,” according to CNBC. The national hiring rate is low, the layoff rate is historically low, and churn has decreased, which means fewer openings and fewer opportunities for workers trying to move. The share of workers who are long-term unemployed, meaning they have been out of work for more than six months, has climbed to 27.6% of all unemployed workers as of October, up from 20.5% three years earlier.

A qualifying work search activity might include applying to a job, creating a profile on a job-search website, or attending a networking event, depending on the state. The Labor Department’s proposal “strongly encourages” states to allow a wide variety of activities to satisfy the requirement. But the practical question is whether five distinct qualifying activities are available every week in a market where hiring is frozen and openings are scarce.

What I think

The rule is a solution to a political problem, not an economic one. Unemployment insurance fraud is a real issue, and the Trump administration wants to show it is cracking down on waste. Requiring five work searches per week sounds tough and disciplined, and it polls well with voters who believe unemployment benefits discourage work. But the policy is being imposed on a job market that is not generating enough openings for five searches per week to be realistic, and the people who will lose benefits are the long-term unemployed, who are the least able to absorb the loss.

The 27.6% long-term unemployment rate is the number that should govern this policy. More than a quarter of unemployed workers have been out of work for more than six months. In a low-hire, low-fire market, these workers are not unemployed because they are not searching. They are unemployed because there are not enough jobs. Requiring five searches per week does not create more jobs. It creates more paperwork, and when the paperwork is not filed correctly, the benefit is cut off. The result is fewer people receiving unemployment insurance, which reduces federal and state spending but does not reduce unemployment.

Evermore’s point about state implementation costs is the practical objection that should kill the rule or force its modification. The unemployment insurance system is administered by states, and states have different technology systems, intake forms, and laws. Forcing 46 states to change their systems to meet a new federal baseline is a massive IT project that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years. The states that already require five searches have systems that work. The states that do not have systems designed for a lower threshold, and the upgrade is not a simple form change. It is a reconfiguration of the claims adjudication process, the fraud detection algorithms, and the appeals system.

The “highly unusual” objection is the legal one. The federal government sets broad parameters for the unemployment insurance system, but the details have always been left to states. The Labor Department is proposing to override state discretion through administrative rulemaking, not legislation. If Congress wants a five-search requirement, Congress can pass one. The executive branch imposing it through regulation is a expansion of federal authority that will be challenged in court by states that do not want to reconfigure their systems, and the outcome of that challenge is not certain.

The rule may still be good policy if the goal is to reduce the unemployment rolls. Some claimants do not search for work while receiving benefits, and a stricter requirement will push them off the rolls or into the labor force. The evidence on work-search requirements is mixed. Some studies show they increase employment exits. Others show they increase benefit exhaustion, meaning people lose benefits without finding jobs. The difference depends on the labor market. In a tight market with many openings, stricter requirements speed up job finding. In a slack market with few openings, they just speed up benefit loss. The current market is slack, and the rule will produce the second outcome.

Sonderling’s statement that unemployment insurance is “temporary support, not a permanent paycheck” is correct as a description of the program’s intent. Jobless workers are generally not eligible for more than six months in almost all states. The question is what happens during those six months. Five searches per week in a market with few openings is a burden that falls on the people who are already struggling the most, and the savings to taxpayers will be modest compared to the cost to the families who lose benefits. The rule is politically satisfying and economically counterproductive, which is a common combination in labor policy.