EDD

Out-of-work residents fight new fraud battles. The system bleeds money. And a $1 billion technology overhaul marches on.

California uses federal dollars intended to help students train for better jobs, but the money often goes to for-profit schools — even some under investigation.

California officials have warned students for years that for-profit schools may make misleading career claims — leaving them with "a mountain of debt" but no job. Still, many for-profit schools remain on the state’s list of recommended job training programs.

California has amassed a catalog of programs and projects that fail to deliver as promised. The list of dysfunctional efforts has a couple of new entries.

California's Employment Development Department got a much-deserved black eye for mismanaging unemployment insurance benefits during the pandemic. There's a lingering aspect to the meltdown, and it could cost the state billions.

Politicians love to promote new laws, programs and services but pay little attention to whether what they have wrought works as promised. The California Employment Development Department is a sad case in point, as a new CalMatters investigation details.

From lost homes to mounting debt, workers from across the state share how they were impacted by payment delays, fraud panic and mass confusion about unemployment benefits.

The EDD is getting a rebuild from the likes of Salesforce and Amazon as pandemic payment disputes drag on and fraud hits other state benefit systems. Workers, advocates and tech experts are hopeful, but wary.

Scammers pulled off one of the biggest suspected frauds in U.S. history while laid-off workers scrambled to survive. A CalMatters investigation finds that the EDD missed red flags and failed to make long-promised changes before the pandemic — and that once the twin crises hit, the state and its top contractors kept making money but were slow to deliver relief.

The state’s unemployment insurance debt, which ballooned as a result of the pandemic, is in dire straits with no clear path forward.