This resource focuses on Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REA) Initiative impacts during the period from July 2009 and December 2009.

In late 2008, The United States Department of Labor asked IMPAQ International to study the effectiveness of REAs in achieving the program’s goals of reducing UI duration and saving UI trust fund resources by helping beneficiaries find jobs faster and eliminating payments to ineligible individuals. The current study focuses on REA program impacts during the period from July 2009 and December 2009. The study includes process and impact analyses of REA programs in four states: Florida, Idaho, Illinois, and Nevada. Using an experimental design, IMPAQ rigorously measured the net impact of the REA initiative in these study states. IMPAQ also examined best practices in a sample of REA states. This report presents the results of all these analyses.

Major Findings & Recommendations

  • REA program was effective in assisting claimants to exit the UI program and avoid exhausting regular UI benefits in Florida, Idaho, and Nevada. There was no impact in Illinois; however, the Illinois REA program suffered from inconsistent implementation, small sample size, and restricting the program to claimants with high demand skills. 
  • A key finding of our analysis is substantially larger impacts in Nevada relative to the other study states. While other states referred many REA participants to reemployment services, Nevada provided reemployment services to REA treatment group members in conjunction with the REA interview. It appears likely that Nevada’s combination of REA services with RES led to the greater program impacts.
  • We conclude that the REA program is an effective strategy for facilitating the exit of UI claimants from the UI program and for producing savings.
  • We also conclude that the significant savings produced by the REA program make it a viable government investment, particularly during periods of high unemployment when claimants are eligible for extended durations of benefits.
  • Finally, it appears likely that combining REA services with reemployment services into a seamless delivery system, may achieve greater impacts than providing REA services alone. It should be noted that beginning in FY 2010 states are required to provide a reemployment service with each REA.