Center for American Progress

Community Navigators Can Increase Access to Unemployment Benefits and New Jobs While Building Worker Power
Report

Community Navigators Can Increase Access to Unemployment Benefits and New Jobs While Building Worker Power

Evidence from the Maine Peer Workforce Navigator program shows that workers and government can benefit from well-designed community partnerships.

In this article
Person stands at window filling out paper application.
A person fills out an application at a job fair, April 2014, in Detroit. (Getty/Joshua Lott)

Introduction and summary

Unemployment insurance (UI) benefits do not reach all eligible workers, even though they are designed to support unemployed workers and their families, as well as the economy as a whole, during economic downturns. Access to UI benefits has been a challenge for all workers, but especially workers of color, workers with less formal education, lower-paid workers, younger workers, and workers with disabilities, who have all been less likely to apply for, and receive, benefits, even when potentially eligible.

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Community-based organizations—particularly those focused on worker issues and led by workers, such as unions and worker centers—can act as trusted intermediaries to help workers interact with government employees and systems to better understand how to complete applications and claim benefits. Through this process, workers can also learn about their labor and employment rights and develop stronger interests in workplace collective action.

Building on community-based organizations’ role in connecting workers, especially from underserved communities, with UI benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor in 2022 launched a three-year pilot “navigator” program.1 This program, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, aimed to help state UI agencies develop such community partnerships.2 This report provides the first evaluation of one of these navigator programs, studying Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator (PWN) program. The PWN program received state funding supplemented by federal navigator grants for unions and other community organizations to help unemployed workers access public unemployment insurance benefits and job training benefits.

The authors find that the state’s PWN program may improve the likelihood that workers receive unemployment benefits and find new jobs as well as increase their interest in workplace collective action. These findings are based on two original surveys of unemployed workers across six states in the U.S. Northeast, including Maine, as well as interviews with Maine’s PWN program clients, navigators, and government employees. The results are telling as federal and state policymakers consider adopting similar navigator programs for UI benefits and other government services and benefits.

These findings also have important implications for the U.S. labor movement. They suggest that navigator programs can be an important pathway through which workers can learn about the possibilities for collective action and develop stronger interest in such action. Still, additional research is needed to more thoroughly understand the impact of these navigator programs.

This evaluation of Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator program finds that:

  • Navigator clients were substantially more likely to report applying for and receiving UI benefits, an easy UI application experience, timelier benefits, and less stress in the application process, compared with demographically similar unemployed workers who did not use the navigator program.
  • Navigator clients applying for UI benefits were also more likely to find a new job after their spell of unemployment than were demographically similar unemployed workers looking for work who did not use the navigator program.
  • Navigator clients were more interested in expressing their views in the workplace—including through having conversations with managers, talking with co-workers, filing complaints or grievances, joining online communities, joining protests or rallies, and going on strike—than were demographically similar unemployed workers who did not use the navigator program.
  • Navigator clients said that having a say at work was a more important aspect of what they would look for in a new job, compared with demographically similar unemployed workers who did not use the navigator program.
  • Program success occurred in significant part because navigators had deep connections to workers, performed their duties in close cooperation with government employees, and were authorized to connect the unemployed to job training as well as UI benefits.
  • Despite the impressive assistance the PWN program offered its clients, there is nevertheless still room to improve it—and the joint federal-state UI system more generally. A significant number of navigator clients still reported difficult experiences with the UI system, in some cases at higher rates than demographically similar unemployed workers. This may reflect both the deeper disadvantages faced by PWN clients and more fundamental flaws of the UI system.
  • Improvements to the Maine program could come from stable funding for navigators to allow greater investment by these groups and additional recruitment of navigator staff from relevant communities.

The unemployment insurance program currently provides vital supports for workers as well the broader U.S. economy, yet comprehensive reform of the program is needed to address its well-known problems, including that it fails to serve many workers, ramps up too slowly and unevenly to fully stabilize the economy during recessions, sets perverse incentives for states and employers that undermine program integrity, and provides inadequate resources for government employees to administer the program.3 Navigators should be part of any comprehensive reform.

As policymakers in the federal government and in the states consider whether to create or expand navigator programs for UI benefits and other government programs, they should seek to build on the successful elements of Maine’s program and lessons learned in this evaluation. Navigator programs hold significant promise to help workers but require guardrails and careful implementation. To ensure the best results, policymakers should: 

  • Increase funding and staffing for agencies that administer UI benefits to ensure that navigator programs supplement fully funded and staffed public agencies.
  • Clarify the duties of and define eligibility rules for navigators to ensure that they complement the role of public unemployment agencies.
  • Provide stable funding with sufficient flexibility so navigators can support workers across multiple government programs.
  • Facilitate interactions between navigators and government agencies.
  • Ensure that navigators are helping address systemic issues, as well as individual cases.
  • Where possible, facilitate organizing opportunities for community-based organizations.
  • Evaluate the impact of navigators to ensure their effectiveness.

Evaluation of Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator program shows that it may be succeeding along several measures: increasing access to unemployment insurance, connecting the unemployed to jobs, and boosting interest in collective action. Maine’s program should be continued, and its model should be spread to other states.

The shortcomings of the UI system and the role of workforce navigator programs

Over the past several decades, only about one-third of all jobless workers received unemployment benefits. Many missed out on benefits because of restrictive eligibility requirements, a lack of program awareness, and the hurdles involved in applying for benefits.4 Some studies suggest that only about 30 percent to 40 percent of jobless workers eligible for unemployment insurance have actually received benefits historically, and since 2010, recipiency has fallen to 20 percent and lower in many states.5 

Moreover, historically marginalized workers, including Black and Hispanic workers, younger workers, and those with less formal education, are less likely to apply for and receive benefits. This suggests that the people most in need of benefits are not getting them.6

The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession further highlighted the long-standing problems that unemployed workers have faced accessing unemployment benefits. Many workers, especially workers from underserved communities, faced long delays and other barriers to claiming benefits. Extensive academic research detailing this evidence provides clear findings for policymakers and the public.7

These problems harm the millions of unemployed workers who miss out on the UI benefits they need to pay for rent, groceries, and other necessities, as well as jeopardize household well-being. They also harm all Americans and the broader U.S. economy, since the unemployment insurance system is intended to act as an automatic stabilizer and help even out consumer purchasing so that job losses do not undermine economic demand—a task that is undercut if only a small share of jobless workers receive UI benefits. These gaps are a striking example of the administrative burdens the public faces when attempting to access unemployment insurance and other public benefits and services.8

One important reason for these disparities is worker misperceptions about UI program rules. These rules are often complex, varying across states and worker circumstances, which leads to widespread confusion about eligibility.9 The result: Many workers who may be eligible for unemployment benefits do not apply.

Research suggests there is one important way to close these disparities: information alongside assistance from trusted, community-based organizations that can work closely with unemployed workers, especially worker-led organizations such as unions.10 Unionized workers are more likely to apply for, and receive, UI benefits than are other workers, in large part due to their more accurate assessments of their eligibility. What is more, gaps in applying for and receiving UI benefits by race and education are smaller—and sometimes disappear—among unionized workers.11 Indeed, unions’ role in helping workers access UI benefits, especially underserved workers, was an inspiration for the creation of UI navigators.12

Figure 1 uses data from Current Population Survey supplements from 2005, 2018, and 2022 to examine rates of unemployed workers who apply for and receive UI benefits, sorted by their levels of education and whether they were represented by a union in their past job. It shows stark disparities among nonunion unemployed workers across all levels of education who are eligible for UI benefits and who apply for and receive them compared with their unionized counterparts. These disparities disappear—or even reverse—among unionized workers. (see Figure 1)

Moreover, the same data show that just 9 percent of unionized workers who did not apply reported that it was because they thought they were not eligible for UI benefits, compared with 26 percent of nonunionized workers.

In fact, the connection between unions and UI benefits is not one-directional.13 Unemployment insurance benefits can also support greater worker organization and collective action through multiple pathways. On a fundamental level, UI benefits help workers focus on pursuing jobs that are better suited to their skills and experience, giving them greater leverage in the labor market—leverage that they can use to demand higher wages, better benefits and working conditions, and opportunities for collective action.14

What’s more, workers feel more confident speaking out at work and engaging in collective action knowing that they can claim UI benefits if they are fired through no fault of their own. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, workers who were more confident about their eligibility for expanded UI benefits were more likely to say that they would consider engaging in collective action on the job to advance their health and safety because they were less concerned about losing their jobs and wages if they were fired.15

Figure 2 below plots data from a survey of front-line workers in April/May 2020 amid the depths of the pandemic recession. It shows that workers who were more confident about receiving UI benefits if they quit their jobs for health and safety reasons were also more likely to say that they were interested in joining protests at their jobs and less fearful of losing their jobs due to collective action. (see Figure 2)

FIGURE 2

During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential front-line workers who were more confident in receiving unemployment insurance (UI) benefits held more favorable opinions about collective action in the workplace

In this analysis, front-line workers include essential workers working outside their homes in select sectors, including social services, health care, protective services, food service, custodial/building maintenance, personal care, sales, installation and repair, and transportation.

Source: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and others, “Understanding the COVID-19 Workplace: Evidence From a Survey of Essential Workers” (New York: Roosevelt Institute, 2020).

Chart: Center for American Progress

During the COVID-19 pandemic, essential front-line workers who were more confident in receiving unemployment insurance (UI) benefits held more favorable opinions about collective action in the workplace

In this analysis, front-line workers include essential workers working outside their homes in select sectors, including social services, health care, protective services, food service, custodial/building maintenance, personal care, sales, installation and repair, and transportation.

Source: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and others, “Understanding the COVID-19 Workplace: Evidence From a Survey of Essential Workers” (New York: Roosevelt Institute, 2020).

Chart: Center for American Progress

One way that states can explicitly build worker power through the UI system is by ensuring that striking workers are eligible for UI benefits, as New York and New Jersey have done.16 More broadly, UI benefits can support greater worker organization and power when unions or other worker organizations play a role in administering those benefits or connecting workers with those benefits.

Indeed, the strongest version of involving unions in the delivery of unemployment insurance, known as the Ghent system, has been found to significantly boost union density in the Western European countries where it is deployed.17

Maine leads the way with community navigators as the federal government spurs more innovation through the American Rescue Plan Act

Motivated by research on how worker organizations can improve access to government benefits and services, as well as those documented disparities in gaining access to unemployment insurance, a number of states have launched navigator programs.18 These states are partnering with community-based organizations, including worker organizations, to help unemployed workers access UI benefits and job training services.

Maine is one of the first states to stand up such a program, enacting its Peer Workforce Navigator program into law in 202119 and launching the program in March 2022 as a two-year pilot.20 Although the state funding has lapsed, the PWN program still has federal funding until mid-2025. However, due to the fact that the federal funding came from an account that is to be spent on UI, some of the program’s work connecting claimants to other programs must be curtailed.21 Groups chosen by the state to be navigators include a mix of worker organizations, community-based service organizations, and organizations supporting low-income populations: the Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Equal Justice, Food AND Medicine, ProsperityME, Wabanaki Public Health & Wellness, and Gateway Community Services. As of summer 2024, PWN records show that the program had served nearly 2,000 clients, including more than 1,110 clients who came to it without a job or underemployed.22

Maine navigator organizations support workers through in-person meetings, emails, phone calls, and text messages, as well as leverage their connections with different communities to spread the word about their services. The primary vehicle for providing PWN client services has been open office hours on Wednesdays and Fridays. In addition, when mass layoffs occurred in Maine, navigator organizations set up rapid-response sessions and subsequently collaborated with the Maine Department of Labor on sessions that the state set up.

In these state-led sessions, navigators were able to play a supporting role, helping translate and answer questions. Navigators have invested significant time in building inroads with community organizations representing underserved populations, especially new Mainers. Opportunities available for claimants to interact included meetings with both unemployment and reemployment staff from the Maine Department of Labor; apprenticeship training representatives from the Maine AFL-CIO; legal support services from Maine Equal Justice; and cultural competency assistance from community partners, translators, and navigator staff.

This model ensures that all the right people are in the right place to get claimants the help they need. Some claimants may have had some early mistrust of the state government but are willing to talk to someone from their communities, whereas others preferred to work directly with government representatives. These in-person help sessions were often intense, with packed rooms and lines out the door. In focus groups and interviews, state staff reported being unable to take breaks or lunches, often working with claimants who were sometimes quite upset by the time they were able to get help. The state staff also collaborated with PWN staff to hold job fairs in Maine CareerCenters, church basements, and temporary housing facilities throughout the state.

In addition to helping workers apply for UI benefits, the Peer Workforce Navigator program connects workers to a range of services, from helping with housing assistance to nutrition programs to child care to career and reemployment services. Employers looking for workers were also placed directly into open office hours and related events for laid-off workers.

The presence of employers served two goals. Aside from the obvious recruitment work, they helped claimants understand the skills that workers need to successfully find new jobs with the language and cultural assistance PWN could provide. Navigators also established long-term relationships with employers such as the U.S. Postal Service, which worked with PWN to establish a “postal jobs boot camp” where 20 workers at a time receive a stipend to tour the facility, learn about the work, and learn what the union representing U.S. Postal Service workers can do for them, and then receive navigator support to submit job applications on-site.23

Another close partnership is with the Maine AFL-CIO’s preapprenticeship construction program. This opportunity provides participants with a stipend to attend a full-time, four-week Union Construction Academy training program. Graduates of the program come away with seven different certifications. Recruitment for this program is focused on improving diversity in the construction trades. Because new Mainers represent a large segment of PWN’s clientele, some participants had extensive trades experience, but they often lacked state or federal credentials such as Occupational Safety and Health certifications, which this program can help provide.

Sometimes workers interested in these trades cannot be accepted—for example, if they may not be able to safely do a dangerous job due to language constraints that prevent them from being able to communicate risks effectively. In that case, the AFL-CIO can work with people to help them find alternative kinds of training for more appropriate reemployment.

The U.S. Department of Labor, deploying funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act to expand equitable and timely access to UI benefits, further supported state UI navigator programs beyond Maine through a new competitive grant initiative launched in 2022.24 The federal agency gave more than $18 million to New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wisconsin to build navigator partnerships, as well as supplemented Maine’s existing navigator program with $3 million in federal funds.25

Together, these navigator programs are intended to leverage the trusted relationships that community-based organizations have, especially with underserved communities that historically have faced barriers accessing UI benefits and other benefits, to help those communities apply for and receive UI benefits by conducting both outreach and awareness-building campaigns, as well as targeted, one-on-one application assistance for UI benefits and other social programs.

Additionally, navigator partner organizations help identify systematic issues or barriers they encounter in the communities where they operate—language access issues, for example, or troublesome aspects of online applications—and work with the state UI agency and state Department of Labor to address those issues. In this way, navigator partnerships not only help individual workers claim benefits but also address more systematic problems facing whole communities of workers.

Assessing the Maine Peer Workforce Navigator program

This report is the first evaluation of Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator program, studying how the program works as well as providing evidence about the potential impact the navigators may have on workers’ access to UI benefits and job training opportunities. In addition, the authors consider evidence that workers’ participation in the navigator program may have changed how they think about worker voice and collective action.

This evaluation consisted of a pair of surveys of unemployed workers: one of workers in the U.S. Northeast region—comprising Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont—and the other Maine’s PWN clients, including qualitative interviews with staff involved in implementing the state’s navigator program (including both state and PWN staff) and unemployed workers. The authors fielded an online survey of workers in those Northeastern states, who reported their experiences with spells of unemployment since 2020. Only respondents who answered affirmatively to the following question participated in the survey:

Over the past four years (going back to 2020), have you ever been unemployed, that is, out of work and looking for work?

Respondents then provided the last month and year of their most recent unemployment spell.

The authors recruited survey respondents for the general Northeastern worker survey through Meta advertisements, using targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram and Reels, WhatsApp, and other embedded Meta websites. We applied quotas based on gender, race and ethnicity, age, U.S. nativity, and education to ensure that the final sample resembled the population of all unemployed workers from 2020 to 2024, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey.26

We applied a CAPTCHA authentication method, which “protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot,”27 and other authentication methods from Qualtrics, including screening out duplicate or bot responses, to ensure a higher-quality set of responses. While not a probability-based sample, past research has shown that Meta-based sampling with appropriate quotas can meet benchmarks from gold-standard government labor force surveys.28

We administered the survey from April 25, 2024, to May 13, 2024. The survey received Columbia University Institutional Review Board approval. Respondents received $5 in online gift cards of their choice for participation. To ensure further representativeness, we developed survey weights based on targets from the Current Population Survey, using data on unemployed workers from 2020 to 2024. The technical appendix shows survey balance with and without these survey weights. This survey provides a baseline comparison for Maine navigator clients. In all, the survey received 670 responses.

We additionally fielded an online survey of Maine Peer Workforce Navigator clients. We partnered with the PWN program to distribute links to the survey through emails, text messages, and individual outreach from individual navigator staff. We administered the survey from May 16, 2024, to July 18, 2024. Because of limited English language proficiency among PWN clients, we also translated the survey and all accompanying messages into Portuguese and French, the two other languages most prevalent among the client population.

The survey received Columbia University Institutional Review Board approval. Respondents received $7 in online gift cards of their choice for participation, reflecting the longer survey length. To ensure representativeness of the sample to the population of clients served by the navigator program, we used administrative data provided by PWN collected on clients to develop survey weights.29 The technical appendix shows survey balance with and without these survey weights. In all, the survey received 167 responses.

Respondents to both surveys reported on their most recent spell of unemployment since 2020, reflecting on their experiences applying for benefits and searching for jobs, as well as their views on worker voice and collective action. The rest of the report compares results from the Maine PWN survey to the survey of all U.S. Northeastern workers, adjusting for demographic differences, including family income, disability, English language proficiency, gender, education, race and ethnicity, age, U.S. nativity, and union membership, as well as the state in which they reported unemployment and the year of their most recent unemployment spell.

Nevertheless, despite these controls, PWN clients may be different from other unemployed workers in the Northeast region in ways that could explain both their decision to seek out PWN services and their access to UI benefits and participation in UI system, job training, and reemployment services.30 For these reasons, the results are suggestive of causal impacts—not definitive evidence of such impacts.

In addition, the results may only reflect the sample of workers who completed the surveys, despite our efforts to ensure a representative set of responses. Further research is necessary to yield causal impacts and understand the differences between PWN clients and other navigator clients and other unemployed workers.

To complement the survey results, we interviewed Maine state government staff involved in implementing the partnership with the PWN, including Laura Boyett, the former director of the Unemployment Insurance division at the Maine Department of Labor. We also interviewed staff working on unemployment insurance, job training, and reemployment services. This report also includes information gleaned from interviews with claimants and community partners. Prior focus group interviews following a mass layoff at Abbott Laboratories last year also inform this section.

The results of the survey

We first describe how Main Peer Workforce Navigator clients found the program. The two most common pathways into the PWN program were through family or friends (28 percent) and community-based organizations (24 percent), followed by social media (18 percent), and the Maine Department of Labor (14 percent). Other pathways were much less common. These pathways, as seen through the interviews, reflect just how much the PWN program worked through social networks embedded in local communities.

Comparing PWN clients with all unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast, we found that PWN clients were more likely to say that they applied for and received UI benefits. The rates of application for and receipt of UI benefits were higher among PWN clients than for demographically similar unemployed workers in the Northeast. Ninety-two percent of PWN clients reported applying for benefits, compared with just 57 percent of all unemployed workers, and 86 percent of PWN clients reported receiving benefits, compared with just 41 percent of all unemployed workers.31 (see Figure 3)

In addition to being more likely to apply for and receive UI benefits, PWN clients also reported that they were more likely to receive timelier benefits—an important factor in providing greater economic security during the pandemic. Past research documented the substantial delays in the receipt of UI benefits among unemployed workers during the pandemic.32 By contrast, PWN clients received timelier benefits than did demographically similar unemployed workers who did not use the navigator program in the U.S. Northeast. Nearly half (49 percent) of PWN clients who received benefits got their first check within three weeks, compared with just 24 percent of comparable Northeastern jobless workers.33 (see Figure 4)

We also found evidence that PWN services helped lower the administrative burdens that their clients faced. These burdens included the financial, psychological, and logistical barriers associated with applying for UI benefits that may otherwise deter workers from accessing the UI program.34 In particular, we found that the experience of applying for benefits was more positive for PWN clients, who reported being less stressed throughout the process and that the experience as a whole was easier.

Indeed, just 17 percent of all unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast said that their application experience was “easy,” compared with 43 percent of PWN clients, and similarly that 46 percent of PWN clients said that the experience was stressful, compared with 63 percent of all Northeastern unemployed workers.35 (see Figure 5)

Given the importance of information sharing among communities, these positive experiences could have enduring impacts in underserved communities. Still, it is worth underscoring how stressful and challenging the UI application experience was overall—a challenge that may require comprehensive reforms of the joint federal-state UI program to address. Even among PWN clients, more than half reported that the experience was difficult, and more than half also reported that the experience was stressful. This indicates that there are limits to what navigator programs can do within the context of the UI system as a whole under the current system of benefits administration.

As noted in the above description of the Maine PWN program, navigators focused on connecting their clients not just with UI benefits but also with training opportunities and reemployment supports. Accordingly, we also probed in our surveys whether PWN clients were more likely to be reemployed following their most recent spell of unemployment than were comparable unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast. We found that PWN clients applying for UI benefits were more likely to report finding new jobs if they were looking for one after their spell of unemployment.

This is especially notable given the disadvantages that PWN clients faced compared with the unemployed worker population as a whole, such as limited English proficiency and lack of cultural awareness of the way government and employment systems work in the United States. We found that 97 percent of PWN clients applying for UI benefits reported finding work if they were looking, compared with 80 percent of comparable unemployed workers overall in the U.S. Northeast. (see Figure 6)

Last, we considered how interacting with the PWN program may have shaped the views and attitudes of workers toward expressing voice in the workplace and labor collective action. This question is especially relevant since the PWN program involves worker organizations, including unions. We did this in several ways.

First, we asked workers how much they would value, as an aspect of a good job, the ability to change things in their jobs that they weren’t satisfied with, on a scale from 1 to 5, where higher values indicated that worker voice and power were more important to them.

Second, we asked workers how likely they were to take a variety of steps to express voice at their jobs in the upcoming year, including having conversations with supervisors to express a workplace issue, get advice from a co-worker on how to address a workplace issue, file a complaint or grievance about a workplace issue, use an online community to rate an employer, join a protest or rally to address a workplace issue, and go on strike to address a workplace issue. Workers could rate their likelihood on a 1–5 scale, with higher values indicating more interest, and we averaged the likelihood that workers would do each of these things.

Last, we asked nonunion members whether they would vote to join a union at their jobs if they had the option to do so. Workers could say they wanted to vote for the union, against the union, or were undecided, and we grouped together undecided and anti-union voters.

We found that PWN clients valued worker power more highly and were more interested in engaging in a variety of forms of worker voice than were comparable unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast.36 We did not, however, find consistent evidence that PWN clients were more likely to support unions than were comparable unemployed workers. (see Figure 7)

These results suggest that UI navigators, especially when PWN partnerships involve worker organizations such as unions, may foster stronger interest in worker voice and collective action, though not necessarily foster interest in a union vote. Part of the reason for the absence of an effect on union vote among all unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast compared with PWN clients may be that the latter generally did not report exposure to explicit discussions about unionization, whereas PWN clients did report conversations with navigators about the value of good-quality jobs, worker voice, and collective action.

It is worth noting that some aspects of the application experience for UI benefits were more challenging for PWN clients. Compared with all U.S. Northeastern unemployed workers, PWN clients tended to be more likely to say they had experienced material hardship while waiting for UI benefits to arrive—despite receiving their benefits faster than other workers. Sixty-seven percent of PWN clients reported financial hardship, compared with 53 percent of all Northeastern unemployed workers.

Moreover, PWN clients were less likely to report feeling that they were respected in the UI application process—importantly, not necessarily due to the PWN program but rather due to the whole experience. Only 28 percent of PWN clients reported that they were respected in the UI application process, compared with 51 percent of all Northeastern workers.

We believe these differences may reflect the greater disadvantage that PWN clients face compared with unemployed workers overall. PWN clients are more likely to be non-native immigrants, to report a disability, or to lack English language proficiency. The UI system as a whole tends to disadvantage these groups of workers. These may be forms of disadvantage that even navigators are unlikely to overcome without more fundamental reform to the system of UI law and administration.

The results of the interviews

This research included interviews with Maine Peer Workforce Navigator clients and client-volunteers, as well as Maine state government workers. This section details their perspectives.

Perspectives from Maine state government workers

State government workers were largely supportive of the PWN program. Their experiences with navigators were positive, and they believe their partnership with navigators can help provide better services through cultural competency, broader reach into new communities, and faster claims.

Talking with state government workers who collaborated most with the navigators revealed that while it took time to establish patterns of engagement between state staff and navigators, the PWN project is providing valuable assistance to claimants and to the state. State staff were impressed by how focused PWN clients were on the idea that their job was to find work quickly. Navigators took care to be individual-focused.

Importantly, even though the preponderance of UI applications outside the work of the navigators is online, the heavily face-to-face aspect of navigator interactions with their clients highlighted the value of in-person interactions, particularly for people with limited English proficiency. Many of the PWN outreach staff members were from the communities that they were reaching out to, so greater trust could immediately be achieved between the staff and the communities they were serving.

The PWN program also could flag more systemic issues—beyond any one individual applicant—that the Maine Department of Labor could address. For instance, some account security password-reset questions used on the online website for UI applications were not culturally appropriate. Asking the name of one’s elementary school may not make sense for new Mainers hailing from a nation that has a different kind of school system.

Another issue particular to new Mainers was that the approval process for the work authorization paperwork they needed to submit to prove they were allowed to work in the United States was backlogged. Working together to help UI claimants resolve issues with those forms shaved 3 weeks to 5 weeks off the process for determining UI eligibility, potentially offering one explanation for the survey findings that PWN clients received UI benefits faster than similar unemployed workers in the U.S. Northeast.

These examples point to a broader change at Maine’s UI agency from the PWN program. After collaborating with the navigators, Maine Department of Labor staff noted an overall improvement in the agency’s cultural competency. The UI system is a very complicated program and is always changing, so having trusted people from the community help facilitate translation during conversations and serve as validators helped Maine Department of Labor staff communicate with the public more effectively in ways that the state government staff would not otherwise be able to do. A state worker who staffed the clinics said that she “love[d] feeling like I was making a difference. I learned more so I can better help people in need.”37 Reemployment staff, who typically work separately from UI program staff, also noted that this project bolstered their connection to the UI program.

One potential concern about using PWN program navigators is whether they would compromise the line between the work of government merit staff and what other PWN staff can help with. Government merit staff are responsible for all official state communications to claimants, defining their program, and conducting all fact-finding and any work involved in the determination of eligibility. Interviewees did not suggest that this was a problem in Maine. Not only was there a very clear delineation between the tasks performed by the merit staff working for the state and the PWN staff, but community navigators could do things that either the state could not do or could not accomplish as quickly.

One example demonstrating this productive interaction is that the navigators helped the Maine Department of Labor recognize that easier-to-interpret, visually compelling materials could help many claimants better understand the UI system. Accordingly, the state agency drew from the suggestion and guidance from the navigators and created and posted short videos explaining various steps in the process.

As the example of the new outreach material shows, the close partnership between state agency and PWN staff often surfaced new ways that they could reinforce one another’s work. Interpretation is another example. The state has some bilingual staff members, but many more were needed to meet demand. Facing this gap, the navigators played an important role. The navigator program had staff who could provide documents in multiple languages explaining the process. This could really make a difference, one interviewee noted, after seeing a “huge change in attitude when you pull out something written in [the claimant’s] language.”38

Advice is another area where navigators can carry out tasks for claimants that the state cannot. State UI staff cannot advise claimants on how to maximize the likelihood that they will be eligible for benefits based on their past earnings, but navigators can. And PWN staff can advise workers about their potential eligibility for other programs and services beyond UI benefits, such as food assistance or health insurance, but UI agency staff cannot. They can only advise workers on the program for which they work.

State agency staff also play an important role in the partnership, since they carry out tasks that navigators cannot. One reason that having Maine Department of Labor staff in every navigator clinic is such an essential part of the process is that navigators are not allowed to help with some aspects of the application, such as answering questions about eligibility rules.

Reflections by state UI staff about the partnership with the PWN program thus far focused on how they might work more closely with the community groups to make sure the navigators understand their role, expectations, and how best to collaborate with the state agency very early in the process. State UI staff point out that navigators were also unaware of the information they should have been collecting about who they served and how. Gathering better information about navigator clientele is important not just for assessing impact but also for assisting in reemployment.

Knowing how many people are interested in which kind of work, for example, could help the state assemble a training cohort or even a cohort in a specific language tailored to specific occupations and industries. Navigators’ lack of documentation was understandable, though, considering the massive demand they faced for their help: There were sometimes lines out the door for navigator clinics, and the PWN program places a premium on serving everyone quickly enough to move through the line.

This leads to another lesson learned: finding enough physical space to serve people comfortably. Maine is a diverse place—with many new arrivals to the United States; four Native American Tribes collectively known as the Wabanaki; and wide-ranging geographic diversity, including cities, rural areas, coastal areas, and exceptionally remote areas—which requires that navigators have cultural competency with the groups they are serving. On a fundamental level, the navigators highlighted the need for more collaboration between state UI staff and Bureau of Employment Services personnel, including more regular touch points.

Finally, state agency staff should consider how the navigators can be pipelines into government service. One of the reemployment staff members interviewed for this project came into his state job after providing similar navigation assistance in the late 1980s, an important reminder of how the skills navigators develop and use can make them ideal candidates for state agency jobs.

Outside of state agency and navigator staff, a major challenge for the navigators was funding. Not only is the future of navigator funding uncertain, given that the federal and state government funding is only for pilot initiatives, but restrictions on federal grants also complicated navigator activities: Federal navigator funding can only be used for helping workers access UI benefits, not other important, follow-on services that PWN staff offer, such as reemployment support; child care; training; and access to other social programs such as food or housing assistance, legal aid, or health insurance.

As is discussed in more detail below, funding in the future should be flexible enough to allow navigators to provide the variety of services that the Maine PWN program is able to provide.

Perspectives from PWN clients and client-volunteers

Clients of the Maine Peer Workforce Navigator program were very pleased with the support they were provided and commonly expressed their gratitude for the service. They believe that trust, care, and empathy are key to the success of the program. Interviews with claimants revealed that a number of people who received PWN services often expressed their gratitude for their help by volunteering to help at PWN clinics. Some clients even go on to work full time for the project.

Three of the recipients interviewed for this report were such clients-volunteers. They reported helping claimants connect with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, MaineCare, the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program, educational opportunities, commercial driver’s license training, vocational rehabilitation, and other retraining programs. Some of the biggest challenges they report being able to help with are ID verification and helping the state identify systemic issues with the call center.

Volunteers provided examples of people they were able to help. Navigators helped a homeless woman with a 4-year-old get a hotel room and, later, stable housing. The woman is now in school for medical technology and will graduate in December. Another claimant was a seasonal worker who had routinely been laid off from July or August to February or March. PWN staff helped her get a full-time job with MaineHealth. Then there was a woman in Bar Harbor who said she was about to end her life out of financial desperation, but PWN staff were able to connect her with benefits and counseling. Her individual navigator continues to perform welfare checks on her and other clients who are experiencing the greatest suffering.

PWN staff also helped people who were mistakenly overpaid or counted as overpaid due to insufficient information to get waivers. One navigator reported she “love[s] being able to help people get what they deserve and they are entitled to, and love[s] the fact that we are a really close team.” Later in the conversation, she went on to say, “The people need us.”39

The people need us. PWN staff, July 18, 2024

One of the former claimants who became a volunteer was a lawyer in his home nation before he was forced to flee to the United States as a refugee. He was willing to take any job, and he took work at Abbott Laboratories manufacturing COVID-19 tests. When demand declined, mass layoffs ensued. He was a significant asset at the clinics because he speaks six languages well and is working on becoming fluent in two more. He found reemployment last June, helping refugees such as himself with legal challenges, and finds that he is still referring clients to PWN when they need something other than legal services, such as housing assistance.

A significant concern claimants raised last year in Abbott-layoff focus groups was whether they could find work before their 26 weeks of benefits ran out. PWN staff helped allay that concern. “PWN was there to assist us to find a job and had people from the State of Maine to lead us and guide us,” recalled one interviewee. “We came only for unemployment, but then they connected us to jobs and opportunities. Some of them are having a difficult time earning the same amount … but they like going to work. They started right away. They did not want to be unemployed.”40 The interviewee also reported that PWN staff helped connect younger workers to educational opportunities in accounting and finance.

As a refugee, this client-volunteer interviewee also reports that PWN’s services are trauma-informed: “We see people coming in with tears and ask what’s going on. They are confused. Someone takes their hand and explains the issue and they come out happy. They have been experiencing a lot. You need to connect yourself to them and what they have been passing through. We transfer trust from me to the peer navigators and back and forth.”41

Claimants’ reports back up the important connection between empathy and material help. One claimant was unemployed for four months before getting a job in home health care. PWN staff filed the job application for her. “Every day I was crying, and Kate told me not to cry about that, I will help you find a new job,” the claimant recalls of her navigator’s help.42

The primary way people learn about the PWN program is through word of mouth, which is a thread that is congruous with several focus groups conducted in 2023. In this way, the successes of the PWN program are a virtuous cycle, with assisted workers helping spread awareness in their own communities. One claimant interviewed was referred by a leader in the Maine Gabonese community; this leader who went on to volunteer with PWN and has in turn referred at least five people to their services, all of whom have been happy with the help they received. She is now in her last semester of school, and her husband has gotten union construction training through the PWN program.43

The most significant barrier to access reported by volunteers and claimants in the focus groups was mistrust of the state. Much of this is attributable to attempts to access UI benefits in 2020 when Maine, like every other U.S. state, experienced extreme difficulty making initial payments because of major backlogs, outdated IT systems, and staff shortages. PWN staff also worked closely with refugee communities who fled their homes due to repressive governmental regimes; these communities understandably bring a distrust for government with them.

Later, because the temporary, pandemic-era expanded UI benefits enacted by the federal government were so complicated and guidance on eligibility shifted over time, the state found that many claimants were incorrectly paid too much in benefits. These unemployed workers received a notice that they had to pay back all their benefits, which workers may have already spent making ends meet. These overpayments created lasting mistrust. Another significant barrier claimants pointed to concerned reemployment and the lack of jobs in claimants’ areas, particularly in rural areas and when there were large layoffs in cities.

The biggest takeaway from claimant interviews and focus groups is that the navigator program is helping workers and has found its footing. The navigators connect with people in the communities underserved by Maine’s UI agency and reemployment services and builds stronger relationships over time as people have positive interactions and spread awareness within their social networks. The program is not just getting people UI benefits, although it helps workers when they receive timely benefits with reduced hassle and stress, but also is connecting its clients with all the resources they need to get back on their feet. Loss of funding now would undo much of the work that this program and people in the community have worked hard to build up.

We transfer trust from me to the peer navigators and back and forth. Claimant and later PWN volunteer, August 9, 2024

Recommendations for the federal government and states

Based on Maine’s experience with its Peer Workforce Navigator program, the authors recommend that the federal government and states expand navigator programs for UI benefits, job training, and other social benefits as part of comprehensive UI reform, drawing from the lessons articulated above and ensuring that evaluations—ideally those incorporating opportunities for strong causal inference—are built into such expansions. In this way, federal and state policymakers alike can see whether larger-scale programs are able to expand worker access to government programs and benefits and economic security, as well as build worker voice and collective power.

This report first spells out recommendations for federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Labor, Congress, and state governments.

U.S. Department of Labor and other federal agencies

An array of federal agencies should explore their existing statutory authorities to expand current navigator programs or launch new programs. The U.S. Department of Labor already has several promising navigator programs, such as the Fostering Access, Rights and Equity grants from its Women’s Bureau, a program that is intended to help disadvantaged, marginalized, and underserved women better understand their rights and access to relevant government benefits and services.44

Federal agencies should consider expanding their programs to cover more partnerships, particularly with worker-led organizations such as those described in this report, that have trusted relationships with communities and state agencies they are trying to reach.

Congress

Legislative policymakers should expand federal agencies’ abilities to launch navigator programs and ensure sufficient funding, as part of comprehensive reforms. The U.S. Department of Labor’s UI navigator grants, for example, were a temporary program as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, and now will require further congressional appropriations to continue. Congress should expand the existing pilot program and give the department the statutory authority to launch new navigator programs.

When giving federal agencies the authority to launch navigator programs, Congress should make clear the strong preference for locally rooted, community-based organizations, especially those that are led by workers themselves.

State governments

State governments; Washington, D.C.; and U.S. territories that do not already have navigator programs should launch their own, learning from Maine’s successes. As Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator program shows, states need not wait for the federal government to launch navigator programs. They can do so with state funds. States may have more flexibility than the federal government to create navigators that work across different programs and meet the needs of local communities.

When scaling up existing navigators or launching new programs, state policymakers should consider key lessons learned from the experiences of the Maine navigator experience:

  • Increase funding and staffing for agencies that administer UI benefits to ensure that navigators supplement fully funded and staffed public agencies.
  • Clarify the duties and define eligibility rules for navigators to ensure navigators complement the role of public unemployment agencies.
  • Provide stable funding with sufficient flexibility so navigators can support workers across multiple government programs.
  • Facilitate interactions between navigators and government agencies.
  • Ensure that navigators are helping address systemic issues, as well as individual cases.
  • Where possible, facilitate organizing opportunities for community-based organizations.
  • Evaluate the impact of navigators.
Increase funding and staffing for agencies that administer UI benefits to ensure that navigators supplement fully funded and staffed public agencies

In order for the UI system to function properly, well-resourced public agencies are required. Navigator programs are not a substitute for public sector workers. Rather, navigators should complement government agencies and staff, performing duties that government agencies cannot.

Additional funding will also be necessary for state staffing, on the presumption that navigators will generate additional program participation.

Clarify the duties and define eligibility rules for navigators to ensure navigators complement the role of public unemployment agencies

Policymakers should clearly define navigator roles so that they complement rather than replace the tasks performed by government employees. These tasks should include claims assistance to individuals, program outreach to workers, public education initiatives, services to appeal UI claims decisions, and helping jobless workers connect to paid employment.

Navigators also should help raise awareness about systemic issues that may be inhibiting access to UI benefits and other benefits. Eligibility rules for navigators should ensure they have deep relationships with workers; a mission and history of advancing the interests of workers; and experience helping people access UI benefits, particularly in the case of advocates for marginalized groups such as people of color, people with disabilities, individuals without a college degree, and individuals with low literacy.

Priority in the navigator selection process should go to organizations such as unions that represent the greatest number of workers and the jobless and are democratically run by workers. These are the organizations most likely to look out for the interests of workers and the jobless.

Provide stable funding with sufficient flexibility so navigators can support workers across multiple government programs

Funding should be sufficient to cover navigator costs and must be stable so that organizations can develop and maintain resources devoted to these efforts over the long term. Funding should also be responsive to economic needs—for instance, automatically increasing during downturns, when navigators see greater demand given higher unemployment.

This funding (including from the federal government) should be flexible so that navigators are not just helping claimants access one specific program, such as UI benefits, but also can provide assistance accessing all the social infrastructure programs, services, and income supports individuals need to move from unemployment to an appropriate replacement job as soon as possible.

One especially important area for navigators in the current economic climate may be housing, given the challenges that finding affordable housing presents to workers moving to areas where they may have more economic opportunities and the contributions of housing to economic insecurity, including during job loss.45

Facilitate interactions between navigators and government agencies

Navigators should have a formalized relationship with relevant government agencies, which should coordinate with navigators to best support the needs of unemployed individuals. Regular check-ins between relevant government entities and navigators should be established early and often.

Including relevant agency staff in clinics, job fairs, and other public events helps get claimants connected to appropriate assistance and helps prevent mistakes or accidental exposure to misinformation among claimants. These steps can help ensure that state merit staff are engaged in all the work that the law and regulations deem to be their responsibility.

Ensure navigators are helping address systemic issues, as well as individual cases

Navigators should be resourced so that they collect and assess broader issues and barriers that they observe within programs. Navigators also need to be able to communicate those issues and recommendations to the relevant government entities.

Where possible, facilitate organizing opportunities for community-based organizations

To build worker voice and community power alongside greater access to government benefits and services, navigators should have opportunities and resources to facilitate organizing the clients they serve—if the clients are interested in such opportunities. This could include ensuring that navigators have opportunities for organizing conversations with workers, if workers are interested; physical access to workers for such conversations; and opportunities for enrolling interested members in community-based organizations through membership dues.

Evaluate the impact of navigators

The performance of navigators should be regularly evaluated to ensure that they are meeting their goals. Existing programs as well as any expansions should be thoroughly studied to confirm that navigators improve access to benefits and employment as well as support workers’ collective action—and that they do so in a manner that complements, rather than replaces, government workers. Studies should also seek to determine the factors that promote success of these programs.

Across all these recommendations, there is an overarching limitation highlighted in this report’s findings that involves the underlying complexity of UI rules and patchwork, often inadequate, UI benefits and other benefits. Navigators could not address these more fundamental barriers for their clients because doing so requires state or federal reforms.

Accordingly, this report underscores the need for policymakers to prioritize reforms to the UI system to simplify it, ensure that benefits provide sufficient support to unemployed workers and their families (especially during downturns), and fund sufficient administration of the program.

Bolstered program administration and expanded navigators must complement, not substitute for, other programs and staff

This report’s final recommendation underscores a key concern with navigator programs—that they may displace work by state agency staff. As the results of our research make clear, in Maine, the Peer Workforce Navigator program staff were most often complementing the work of state UI and workforce agency staff, not displacing or replacing such work. Maine PWN staff recognized how PWN groups carried out work that agency staff could not—because of restrictions stemming from capacity, language or cultural competencies, state agency policies or laws, and lack of community ties and trust—and in turn, navigators made sure to draw clear lines between what they could and could not do for their clients.

In this way, we find that the choice between navigators and state agency support in Maine is a false one: They make one another’s work more efficient and effective, especially for reaching underserved communities. We also find that the choice between increasing program administrative capacity or expanding navigators is a false choice: Both policy levers offer distinctive benefits that complement one another. So long as there are communities that have mistrust of government agencies, language or cultural barriers to accessing public programs, are physically or geographically isolated, or face obstacles to accessing benefits and services because of onerous application procedures, we see important complementary roles for expanded navigators alongside bolstered state administrative staff.

Because state staff were physically present for major navigator interactions with the communities they serve, as well as responsible for integrating improvements that the navigators identified to improve access, any funding associated with building a navigator program should include funding to expand state staff capacity to engage with and direct the navigator work. What’s more, through the mechanisms identified in this report, navigators fostering greater worker voice and power can foster a more robust base of civic support for government programs, including for supporting administration.

Conclusion

Evaluation of Maine’s Peer Workforce Navigator program finds that the program has been largely successful. The navigator program improved unemployed workers’ access to government benefits, increased the likelihood that they found new jobs, and boosted interest in collective action, though there are areas for improvement, as some navigator clients reported difficult experiences with the UI system.

The results from Maine suggest that navigator programs should be expanded as part of comprehensive reforms of the federal-state UI system. To ensure that navigator programs are successful, policymakers should ensure that navigators complement, not replace, state government staff and work closely with properly resourced public agencies; have stable funding, clear duties, and eligibility rules; and address systemic issues as well as individual cases.

Ultimately, if additional navigator programs were properly designed, they could provide benefits that are similar to those provided by the Maine Peer Workforce Navigator program.

Technical appendix for survey results

Below is the recruitment material for both the Northeastern unemployed worker survey and the PWN survey.

PWN email to clients

Hello,

I am inviting you to participate in a paid academic research study about your experience with the Maine Peer Workforce Navigators. The study involves a short, 7-10 minute anonymous survey about your experience. The survey is anonymous, and cannot be associated with you. The goal of the study is to understand how well the Navigators are working and how they can be improved. The link to the survey is here: ((Link))

At the end of the survey, you will have the opportunity to receive a $7 gift certificate for use at Amazon and other retailers.

Thank you for considering participating in this academic study. You can reach out to me at this email address if you have further questions about the study.

Sincerely,

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez

Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs

Columbia University

[email protected]

PWN text messages to clients without email address on file

Thank you for working with a Peer Workforce Navigator at ((org)) in the past year. We are participating in a research study with Columbia University to measure the value of our program. We would love for you to participate! The survey will take 10 minutes for you to finish and will include questions about finding a job, unemployment benefits, and more. Your answers are anonymous and you will receive a small payment of $7 for completing the survey. Are you interested? If so, please reply here with your email address. Thanks!

PWN text messages to clients with email address on file

Thank you for working with a Peer Workforce Navigator at ((org)) in the past year. We are participating in a research study with Columbia University to measure the value of our program. On ((day)) you were sent an email from the researcher, Alexander Hertel Fernandez, with a link to the survey. Please click the link in your email to participate. The survey will take 10 minutes for you to finish and will include questions about finding a job, unemployment benefits, and more. Your answers are anonymous, and you will receive a small payment of $7 for completing the survey. Do you have the link to the survey or have other questions? Message me if you do. Thanks!

Exact survey question wording for the items analyzed, as well as how responses were coded for analysis in the graphs

When last unemployed: “About when was the month that you became unemployed (thinking back to 2020)? If you became unemployed multiple times, please give the most recent time.” Year, Month dropdowns.

Where last unemployed: “In which state did you spend the most time over the past four years (that is, since 2020)? If you lived in multiple states, pick the state in which you spent most of your time.” State dropdown.

UI application: “The last time you became unemployed (thinking back to 2020), did you apply for unemployment insurance benefits?” Yes, no, not sure. Graph shows yes vs. other options.

UI receipt: “The last time you became unemployed (thinking back to 2020), did you receive unemployment insurance benefits?” Yes, no, not sure. Graph shows yes vs. other options.

Time to first UI check: “How long did it take you to receive unemployment insurance benefits after applying?” Within two weeks, within three weeks, within a month, longer than a month, not sure. Graph shows within two weeks and within three weeks vs. other options.

Ease of application: “How easy or difficult was it to apply for unemployment insurance benefits?” Very easy, somewhat easy, somewhat difficult, very difficult, not sure. Graph shows very easy or somewhat easy vs. other options. 

Stress in application: “How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: ‘Applying for unemployment insurance benefits was stressful?’ Strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree, not sure. Graph shows strongly agree and somewhat agree vs. other options.

Reemployment: “Were you able to find a new job after you became unemployed?” Yes, no, not sure. Graph shows yes vs. other options. 

Support for worker power: “On a five-point scale, where 5 means extremely important and 1 means not at all important, how important are each of the following characteristics for you personally to consider a job to be a good job? Having the power to change things in your job you’re not satisfied with” 1–5 scale. Graph shows average response.

Interest in workplace collective action: “How likely or unlikely are you personally to do any of the following things over the next year?” Have a conversation with your supervisor or manager to address a workplace issue, Get advice from a coworker about how to address a workplace issue, File a complaint or grievance about a workplace issue, Use an online community or website to rate your employer on a workplace issue, Join a protest or rally with others to address a workplace issue, Go on strike to address a workplace issue. Each activity rated on a 1–5 scale of interest. Graph shows average response.

Interest in unionization: “If an election were held today to decide whether employees like you should be represented by a union at your job, would you vote for the union or against the union?” For the union, against the union, or undecided.

For PWN clients only – How heard about PWN: “How did you hear about the Peer Workforce Navigator program? Please select all that apply.” Flier, news media (such as through newspapers, television, or radio), social media, labor union, community group, Maine Department of Labor, other state agency, friend or family member, other, or don’t remember.

In the report, our figures adjust for a variety of worker demographic characteristics, states of residence (with state fixed effects), and years of unemployment during respondents’ last unemployment spell (with year fixed effects). Below, we summarize these control variables, corresponding survey questions, and their coding for analysis.

Total family income: “In which of these groups does your TOTAL FAMILY INCOME, from all sources, fall (before taxes)? Total income includes interest or dividends, rent, tips, Social Security, other pensions, alimony or child support, unemployment compensation, public aid (welfare), armed forces or veteran’s allotment.” We used quartiles and entered the quartiles as dummies.

Own disability: “Do you have a disability for which you need an accommodation to work?” Yes, no, not sure. We coded this as a binary with yes as one and other options as zero.

English-language proficiency: “Do you feel proficient reading, writing, and speaking in English?” Yes, no, not sure. We coded this as a binary with yes as one and other options as zero.

Gender: “Which gender best describes you?” Male, female, other. We entered these as dummies.

Education: “What is the highest level of schooling you have completed?” Elementary or some high school, high school or high school equivalent (e.g., GED), some college, associates degree or vocational program, college, and graduate or professional school. We collapsed these into four categories—less than high school, high school, some college, or college or more—and entered these as dummies.

Race: “Which racial or ethnic group best describes you?” White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Other. We collapsed these into three categories: white, Black, and other. We entered these as dummies.

Hispanic ethnicity: “Are you of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?” Yes, no. We entered this as a binary dummy.

Age: “In what year were you born?” We computed age at time of survey and collapsed into four categories: 18-35, 35-54, 55-64, and 65+. We entered these as dummies.

U.S. nativity: “Where were you born?” U.S. or U.S. territory or commonwealth, outside the U.S. or U.S. territory and commonwealth, or not sure. We coded native born as one and other options as zero.

Union member: “Are you a member of a union or a teachers association?” Yes, currently a member; no, but was a member in the past; no, never a member; not sure. We coded current membership as one and other options as zero.

The figure below reports ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results with 95 percent confidence intervals for the graphs shown in the paper, clustering robust standard errors by state, which permits readers to see the statistical significance of the differences identified between PWN clients and other unemployed workers. Each estimate on the below graph comes from a separate OLS regression with an outcome reported in the paper, an indicator for whether a respondent was a PWN client, worker demographic controls, state fixed effects, and year fixed effects. Note that we have scaled all outcomes to run from 0 to 1 to ease comparisons across variables. All the results reported in the paper are significant at least at the 95 percent level, with the exception of workers’ support for worker power (p = 0.10), workers’ support for unionization (p = 0.32), and worker reports of a stressful application (p = 0.13).

Below, for transparency, we also show the same OLS regressions without worker demographic controls. The point estimates are generally similar to models without controls.

Technical appendix for interviews

One-on-one interviews were conducted between May and August 2023. Four state employees were interviewed in Augusta, Maine, in person. Two interviews were conducted with PWN staff, three with claimants who went on to volunteer for the project, and two with other claimants. Four focus groups were conducted in April 2023 in English, French, and Lingala, with PWN-provided translators present, and comprised groups of approximately 10–20 claimants. One focus group was made up of community group organizers and leadership who collaborated with the navigators. All claimants were identified by PWN staff.

Endnotes

  1. U.S. Department of Labor, “Grant Opportunity for States to Participate in the American Rescue Plan Act” (Washington: 2022), available at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/advisories/UIPL/2022/UIPL_11-22_acc.pdf; Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization, “Insights and Successes: American Rescue Plan Act Investments in Unemployment Insurance Modernization” (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, 2024), available at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/ui-modernization/ARPA%20Investments%20in%20Unemployment%20Insurance%20Modernization.pdf.
  2. U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor awards more than $18M in grants to address disparities in delivery of unemployment benefits, services in 7 states,” Press release, June 10, 2022, available at https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20220610-0.
  3. Josh Bivens and others, “Reforming unemployment insurance: Stabilizing a system in crisis and laying the foundation for equity” (Washington: Center for American Progress and others, 2021), available at https://www.nelp.org/app/uploads/2021/06/Reforming-Unemployment-Insurance-June-2021.pdf; National Academy of Social Insurance, “Unemployment Insurance Task Force Final Report” (Washington: 2024), available at https://www.nasi.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Unemployment-Insurance-Task-Force-Final-Report.pdf; Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization, “Building Resilience: A plan for transforming unemployment insurance” (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, 2024), available at https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/pdf/transfplan/Building_Resilience_Complete%20document.pdf.
  4. See, for example. Employment and Training Administration, “Unemployment Insurance Chartbook: Regular Program Insured Unemployment as a Percent of Total Unemployment” (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor, 2024), available at https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/chartbook.asp. Moreover, recipiency varies dramatically by state. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that recipiency rates varied from a low of 10 percent in Kentucky to a high of 55 percent in Minnesota and averaged about 29 percent nationally.
  5. For historical estimates of recipiency by eligibility and disparities, see Eliza Forsythe and Hesong Yang, “Understanding Disparities in Unemployment Insurance Recipiency” (Washington: U.S. Department of Labor Chief Evaluation Office, 2021), available at https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OASP/evaluation/pdf/University%20of%20Illinois%20-%20Final%20SDC%20Paper.pdf.
  6. On racial disparities in UI recipiency, see ibid.; Elira Kuka and Bryan A. Stuart, “Racial Inequality in Unemployment Insurance Receipt and Take-Up” (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021), available at https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29595/w29595.pdf; Daphné Skandalis, Ioana Marinescu, and Maxim N. Massenkoff, “Racial Inequality in the U.S. Unemployment Insurance System” (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022), available at https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30252/w30252.pdf.
  7. See, for example, Alex Bell and others, “Disparities in Access to Unemployment Insurance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons from U.S. and California Claims Data,” RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9 (3) (2023): 78–109, available at https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/9/3/78.full.pdf; Rakeen Mabud and others, “Foundations for a Just and Inclusive Recovery: Economic Security, Health and Safety, and Agency and Voice in the COVID-19 Era” (New York: Color of Change and others, 2021), available at https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/fdd82af7-9ac6-462a-a83e-4f7c096a269e/content.
  8. Pamela Herd and others, “Administrative Burden as a Mechanism of Inequality in Policy Implementation,” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9 (5) (2023): 1–30, available at https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/9/5/1.full.pdf; Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan, Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2018); Office of Management and Budget, “Strategies for Reducing Administrative Burden in Public Benefit and Service Programs” (Washington: Executive Office of the President, 2022), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/BurdenReductionStrategies.pdf; Office of Management and Budget, “Tackling the Time Tax: How the Federal Government Is Reducing Burdens to Accessing Critical Benefits and Services” (Washington: Executive Office of the President, 2023), available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/OIRA-2023-Burden-Reduction-Report.pdf.
  9. Zachary Parolin, Christina J. Cross, and Rourke O’Brien, “Administrative Burdens and Economic Insecurity Among Black, Latino, and White Families,” RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9 (5) (2023): 56–75, available at https://www.rsfjournal.org/content/rsfjss/9/5/56.full.pdf.
  10. John W. Budd and Brian P. McCall, “The Effect of Unions on the Receipt of Unemployment Insurance Benefits,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 50 (3) (1997): 478–492; John W. Budd and Brian P. McCall, “Unions and Unemployment Insurance Benefits Receipt: Evidence from the Current Population Survey,” Industrial Relations Journal 43 (2) (2004): 339–355; Alix Gould-Werth and Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, “Labor organizations and Unemployment Insurance: A virtuous circle supporting U.S. workers’ voices and reducing disparities in benefits” (Washington: Washington Center for Equitable Growth, 2020), available at https://equitablegrowth.org/labor-organizations-and-unemployment-insurance-a-virtuous-circle-supporting-u-s-workers-voices-and-reducing-disparities-in-benefits/.
  11. Gould-Werth and Hertel-Fernandez, “Labor organizations and Unemployment Insurance: A virtuous circle supporting U.S. workers’ voices and reducing disparities in benefits.”
  12. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and Michele Evermore, “5 Facts About Unemployment Insurance Navigator Grants,” U.S. Department of Labor Blog, January 31, 2022, available at https://blog.dol.gov/2022/01/31/5-facts-about-unemployment-insurance-navigator-grants.
  13. For an extended discussion, see ibid.
  14. Gordon Dahl and Matthew M. Knepper, “Unemployment Insurance, Starting Salaries, and Jobs” (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022), available at https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30152/w30152.pdf.
  15. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez and others, “Understanding the COVID-19 Workplace: Evidence from a Survey of Essential Workers” (New York: Roosevelt Institute, 2020), available at https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RI_SurveryofEssentialWorkers_IssueBrief_202006-1.pdf.
  16. Daniel Perez, “Extending unemployment insurance to striking workers would cost little and encourage fair negotiations” (Washington: Economic Policy Institute, 2024), available at https://www.epi.org/blog/extending-unemployment-insurance-to-striking-workers-would-cost-little-and-encourage-fair-negotiations/.
  17. Matthew Dimick, “Labor Law, New Governance, and the Ghent System,” North Carolina Law Review 90 (2012): 320–378; David Madland and Malkie Wall, “American Ghent: Designing Programs to Strengthen Unions and Improve Government Services” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2019), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/american-ghent/; Bo Rothstein, Just Institutions Matter (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett, “Consequences of Routine Work-Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Well-Being,” American Sociological Review 84 (1) (2019): 82–114; Bruce Western, Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionization in the Capitalist Democracies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
  18. U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, “Insights and Successes: American Rescue Plan Act Investments in Unemployment Insurance Modernization,” available at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/ui-modernization/arpa-success-stories (last accessed October 2024).
  19. Maine Chapter 456 Public Law: S.P. 507 – L.D. 1564. See also Center for American Progress, “Maine’s New Union-Led Unemployment Insurance Navigator Program Is a Model for Other States,” Press release, July 13, 2021, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/press/statement-maines-new-union-led-unemployment-insurance-navigator-program-model-states/.
  20. Maine Department of Labor, “Maine Department of Labor Launches Peer Workforce Program to Connect Maine People to Jobs and Training,” Press release, March 22, 2022, available at https://www.maine.gov/labor/news_events/article.shtml?id=7066600.
  21. Maine Department of Labor staff, interviews with author, Augusta, Maine, May 30 and 31, 2024, on file with author.
  22. PWN administrative records shared by PWN staff, May 8, 2024, on file with author.
  23. Peer Workforce Navigator staff, interview with author via Zoom, April 4, 2024, on file with author.
  24. U.S. Department of Labor, “Grant Opportunity for States to Participate in the American Rescue Plan Act”; Office of Unemployment Insurance Modernization, “Insights and Successes: American Rescue Plan Act Investments in Unemployment Insurance Modernization.”
  25. U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor awards more than $18M in grants to address disparities in delivery of unemployment benefits, services in 7 states.”
  26. Sarah Flood and others, “IPUMS CPS: Version 11.0 [dataset]” (Minneapolis: IPUMS Center for Data Integration, 2023), available at https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V11.0.
  27. CAPTCHA, “Telling Humans and Computers Apart Automatically,” available at http://www.captcha.net/ (last accessed September 2024).
  28. Schneider and Harknett, “Consequences of Routine Work-Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Well-Being”; Daniel Schneider and Kristen Harknett, “What’s to Like? Facebook as a Tool for Survey Data Collection,” Sociological Methods & Research 51 (1) (2022): 108–140; Baobao Zhang and others, “Quota sampling using Facebook advertisements,” Political Science Research and Methods 8 (2020): 558–564.
  29. PWN administrative records shared by PWN staff, May 8, 2024, on file with author.
  30. At the same time, it is worth underscoring how PWN clients are often more disadvantaged than other unemployed workers: They are much more likely to be non-native workers, to have limited English language proficiency, and to report disabilities. As a result, we might think that unmeasured aspects of disadvantage might bias our results against finding a “PWN effect” given navigators’ need to overcome these barriers that their clients might face.
  31. Without adjusting for demographic characteristics, 82 percent of PWN clients applied for UI, compared with 56 percent of Northeastern workers; 73 percent of PWN clients received UI, compared with 41 percent of Northeastern workers.
  32. Gregory Acs and Michael Karpman, “Employment, Income, and Unemployment Insurance during the COVID-19 Pandemic” (Washington: Urban Institute, 2020), available at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/employment-income-and-unemployment-insurance-during-covid-19-pandemic.
  33. Without adjusting for demographic characteristics, 50 percent of PWN clients received benefits within three weeks, compared with 24 percent of Northeastern workers.
  34. Herd and others, “Administrative Burden as a Mechanism of Inequality in Policy Implementation”; Herd and Moynihan, Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means; Office of Management and Budget, “Strategies for Reducing Administrative Burden in Public Benefit and Service Programs”; Office of Management and Budget, “Tackling the Time Tax: How the Federal Government Is Reducing Burdens to Accessing Critical Benefits and Services.”
  35. Without adjusting for demographic characteristics, 26 percent of PWN clients reported an easy experience, compared with 17 percent of Northeastern workers, and 54 percent of PWN clients reported a stressful experience, compared with 63 percent of Northeastern workers.
  36. Without adjusting for demographic differences, values for worker power being important to good jobs are 4.36 for PWN clients vs. 3.89 for all Northeastern workers; values for interest in worker voice are 3.78 for PWN clients vs. 2.92 for all Northeastern workers (on the scales for the items).
  37. State agency staff, in-person interview with author, Augusta, Maine, May 31, 2024, on file with author.
  38. State agency staff, in-person interview with author, Augusta, Maine, May 31, 2024, on file with author.
  39. PWN staff, interview with author via phone, July 18, 2024, on file with author.
  40. Claimant and later PWN volunteer, interview with author via Zoom, August 9, 2024, on file with author.
  41. Ibid.
  42. PWN client, interview with author via phone, July 15, 2024, on file with author.
  43. PWN client, interview with author via Zoom, July 15, 2024, on file with author.
  44. U.S. Department of Labor, “US Department of Labor awards more than $1.5M in grants to prevent, respond to workplace gender-based violence, harassment,” Press release, September 19, 2023, available at https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/osec/osec20230919-0.
  45. Matthew Desmond and Carol Gershenson, “Housing and Employment Insecurity among the Working Poor,” Social Problems 63 (1) (2016): 46–67.

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Authors

Michele Evermore

Interim Director of Disability Economic Justice; Senior Fellow

The Century Foundation

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez

Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs; Visiting Fellow

Columbia University; Washington Center for Equitable Growth

David Madland

Senior Fellow; Senior Adviser, American Worker Project

Center For American Progress

Team

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