Top
image credit: Unsplash

Senators want USDS to aid state and local government’s IT modernization rush

In light of the ongoing failure of many state government unemployment systems to withstand record numbers of claims for financial assistance, a group of 16 Democratic senators asked congressional leadership on Wednesday to approve actions that would make some of the federal government’s digital resources available to state and local governments during the period of pandemic response.

The lawmakers, which include Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., requested in a letter that resources such as the Office of Management and Budget’s United States Digital Service and the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Service be made available to the “beleaguered” states, which have collectively received more than 22 million new unemployment claims within the last month, according to the Department of Labor’s April 16 update.

Read More on StateScoop