Labor Department’s resistance to political pressure helped stem fraud, secretary says

When thousands of Marylanders were thrown out of work at the height on the COVID-19 pandemic, the state Department of Labor found itself under siege, trying to process a flood of unemployment insurance claims that arose seemingly overnight. The agency’s workforce and its benefits system struggled, not least because department personnel suddenly found themselves working from home. They also found themselves coping with a cascading set of changes in federal eligibility guidelines, each requiring software updates and staff training, as well as an onslaught in fraudulent claims from around the globe.