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(Some partners also offer free state filing.) This is an opportunity many people overlook: About 70% of Americans qualified for IRS Free File in 2022, according to the Taxpayer Advocate,, but only 2% actually used it. Even if you meet the income requirements, Free File might not have the forms you need. If you don't meet the income requirement for Free File, you can still use the site's fillable forms. Bottom lineThere are lots of ways to file your taxes for free, whether that's with the IRS or a commercial tax software company.

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☆ Can you file for unemployment if you're getting severance or freelancing? Here’s what to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Jennifer Liu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Who qualifies for unemployment benefits? You're eligible to receive unemployment insurance if you lose your job through no fault of your own, which includes being laid off. The average weekly unemployment benefit was around $385 as of the third quarter of 2022, but it can vary widely. Should you file for unemployment if you're getting severance? Some states will let you apply for and receive unemployment benefits even if you're getting severance pay, whereas others say severance money could lower your benefit amount or make you ineligible at that time.

☆ The current job market is a ‘juggernaut,’ economist says. Here are 6 things to know as a jobseeker
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Greg Iacurci | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Unemployment is at historic lowsThe unemployment rate fell to 3.4% in January — the lowest since May 1969. In fact, you'd have to go back to October 1953 to find a lower unemployment rate (3.1%). "The job market is still strong, and workers have opportunities to go out and find a job that's a better fit for them," Zhao said. "The thing that strikes me the most about the labor market is there aren't layoffs," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. That's not necessarily a bad sign — the job market was also strong in the run-up to the pandemic.

That is a shift from previous budget negotiations, when Republicans suggested raising the retirement age and partially privatizing Medicare. Social Security accounted for 17% of federal spending in the 2021 fiscal year, while Medicare accounted for 13%, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. That would leave another 11% of the federal budget off limits. That would force budget cuts if federal borrowing exceeded a set share of the economy, but he has not said what that limit should be. NO DEBT CEILING INCREASE AT ALLSome hardliners, such as Tim Burchett and Andy Biggs, have said they will vote against raising the debt ceiling, no matter what provisions are attached.

☆ U.S. watchdog identifies $5.4 billion in potentially fraudulent COVID-19 loans
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Kanishka Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. government likely awarded about $5.4 billion in COVID-19 aid to people with questionable Social Security numbers, a federal watchdog said in a report released on Monday. The watchdog, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), said it "identified 69,323 questionable Social Security Numbers (SSNs) used to obtain $5.4 billion from the Small Business Administration's (SBA) COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan (COVID-19 EIDL) program and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)." In May 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland launched a COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force. In September, the inspector general for the U.S. Labor Department said fraudsters likely stole $45.6 billion from the United States' unemployment insurance program during the coronavirus outbreak by applying tactics like using Social Security numbers of deceased individuals. Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ U.S. unemployment system still plagued by delays 3 years after pandemic-era downturn
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Greg Iacurci | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesThese days the U.S. unemployment system is somewhat of an anomaly. At the pandemic-era nadir, just 52% got a "timely" first payment of unemployment insurance, for example. Unemployment claims spiked as businesses closed amid stay-at-home orders to contain the virus' spread. States get funding based on their administrative workload, like the volume of claims states are paying. That's especially true for one CARES Act program, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.

☆ Pandemic Fraud Gone Wild
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Government spending and fraud are regular dance partners, but rarely as cheek to cheek as they were with unemployment payments during the pandemic. A new report adds more evidence about the failure to protect taxpayers. The Government Accountability Office this week released a review of the Labor Department’s handling of $878 billion in unemployment insurance handouts from April 2020 to September 2022. Labor estimates that fraud in its normal unemployment program hit $8.5 billion from July 2020 through June 2021. That’s 8.6% of outlays.

☆ If you're a gig worker, your boss might be using a technicality to underpay you
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Many workers are classified by employers as independent contractors, rather than employees. The Biden administration has proposed a rule making it easier for gig workers to be counted as employees. NELP finds that 10% to 30% of employers — and potentially more — misclassify workers as independent contractors, "which indicates that several million workers nationally may be misclassified." Truck drivers misclassified as independent contractors may lose between $11,076 and $18,053, according to EPI's estimates. The Biden administration is taking aim at misclassification, hoping to crack down on it and offer an easier pathway for independent contractors to be considered employees.

☆ As layoffs pick up, here's what workers need to know about filing for unemployment benefits
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Annie Nova | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Do I qualify for unemployment benefits? Generally, to be eligible for unemployment benefits you have to have been laid off through no fault of your own, Evermore said. Are unemployment benefits taxable? In the third quarter of 2022, the average weekly unemployment benefit was around $385. Will that impact my unemployment benefits?

☆ Google parent Alphabet is cutting 12,000 jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Google parent Alphabet is eliminating about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, the company said Friday, in the latest cuts to shake the technology sector. “Over the past two years we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth,” Pichai said in the email. Google’s job cuts are just the latest in a bruising wave of tech layoffs, as inflation weighs on consumer spending and rising interest rates squeeze funding. “While layoffs from high-profile firms make the headlines, plenty of firms are desperate for more workers, especially tech workers. “The labor market is still so tight that many tech workers, and workers with other skills, are snapped up well before they need to collect an unemployment check.

☆ Jim Cramer says an ‘obsession’ with mega-cap tech names is overshadowing a bull market
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Thursday said that the carnage in tech stocks is concealing a bull market in other names. Stocks fell Thursday after the Labor Department reported that initial filings for unemployment insurance fell to their lowest level since September, indicating that the labor market remains hot despite the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes. Shares of companies including Visa , Mastercard , J.P. Morgan Chase and Boeing bottomed late last year, according to Cramer. Cramer, who has remained adamant that investors stay away from mega-cap tech name, told investors to not make the same mistake as Wall Street by getting caught up in tech stock declines. The tech track that can't seem to find its footing, rooted in about 30% of the market, and the other track, which found its footing months and months and months ago," he said.

☆ Women living in states with abortion bans suffer greater economic insecurity
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Vanessa Yurkevich | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Women living in states that restrict or ban abortion face greater economic insecurity than those living in states where they have access, new research finds. “In many of these states, especially the states which have banned abortion, many of the women who are facing economic challenges already are also women of color,” she said. Raising the minimum wage is a powerful tool that has been known to have significant impact on closing racial income gaps. But nearly two-thirds of abortion restrictive states have a $7.25 minimum wage, the lowest legal hourly wage for most workers in the United States. The average minimum wage across the 26 states is $8.17, lower than the average $11.92 for states with no restrictions.

☆ The US's chances of dodging a recession are growing given layoffs remain low, top Moody's economist says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( George Glover | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The latest jobs report shows that the US can still dodge a recession, according to the top economist at Moody's. "Job market slack is forming and wage pressures are abating," Mark Zandi said Sunday. Friday's report showed unemployment fell to 3.5% in December, while hourly earnings rose at a lower-than-expected rate. "That's because businesses aren't laying off workers and unemployment is at a half-century low, but regardless, job market slack is forming, and wage pressures are abating." Stocks rallied after the jobs report, with the S&P 500 up 2.28% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 700 points as of Friday's closing bell.

☆ Congress created an actual safety net for Americans during the last crisis. Don't expect that to happen again.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Congress enhanced unemployment benefits and gave parents monthly checks during the first two years of the pandemic. For Maggie Lopez, a single mother in Texas, the checks meant some breathing room for her and her newborn. The enhanced unemployment had a ripple effect, according to Evermore: People were able to stay home safely. In the case of enhanced unemployment, some states decided to end their participation in federal programs early, leaving many workers in dire straits. After Congress failed to renew a reduced version of the child tax credit at the end of 2021, child poverty once again ticked up.

LOS ANGELES — A Tennessee rapper who boasted about committing Covid-19 relief fraud in a music video was sentenced to over six years in prison Wednesday, prosecutors said. Baines, 33, bragged about the fraud in videos on YouTube and Instagram, according to court documents. In addition to the prison sentence, Baines was also ordered to pay $704,760 in restitution. Congress approved massive financial resources to help people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down large parts of the economy. The U.S. Labor Department’s inspector general’s office has estimated that $872.5 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance funding — and at least $163 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance benefits — could have been paid improperly, some of it through fraud.

The records, a series of state tax lien notices from the last two years, show the state of California claiming that Yeezy Apparel, a company managed and reportedly owned by Ye, owes over $600,000 in unpaid tax debt. Four tax law experts said the amount owed by Yeezy Apparel is significant and could be a sign of deeper issues at the company. “Multiple California tax liens, adding up to $600,000, that’s certainly a sign of either extreme incompetence or extreme cash problems,” said USC Gould School of Law Professor Edward McCaffery, who specializes in tax law. Yeezy Apparel has been operating in California since 2017, according to public California business records, and was recorded as being active and in “good” standing in an annual filing in January. “Tax lien indicates that the state maintains that a debt is owing to the state,” LoPucki said.

☆ Maryland bans use of TikTok, other Chinese, Russian products by state agencies after NBC News report
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Sarah Fitzpatrick | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Kit-Ramgopal-Byline.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

The state of Maryland on Tuesday banned the use of TikTok and other Chinese and Russian products by state agencies, citing reporting by NBC News about hackers linked to the Chinese government stealing millions in Covid benefits from state governments in the U.S. “There may be no greater threat to our personal safety and our national security than the cyber vulnerabilities that support our daily lives,” said Gov. In the past, Alibaba and Alipay have declined to comment about accusations of being national security risks. WeChat has denied being a national security risk. Also in November, the state of South Dakota banned the use of TikTok by state agencies.

☆ Hackers linked to Chinese government stole millions in Covid benefits, Secret Service says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Sarah Fitzpatrick | Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Kit-Ramgopal-Byline.Jpg | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

Hackers linked to the Chinese government stole at least $20 million in U.S. Covid relief benefits, including Small Business Administration loans and unemployment insurance funds in over a dozen states, according to the Secret Service. One senior Justice Department official called it “dangerous” and said it had serious national security implications. ‘The horse is out of the barn’As soon as state governments began disbursing Covid unemployment funds in 2020, cybercriminals began to siphon off a significant percentage. China’s targets include state governments, which can have inadequate cybersecurity defenses. “The state governments don’t allocate a lot of cyber protection money to their state I.T.

Here's how to file for unemployment insurance benefits, whether you're laid off, furloughed, or your hours are severely reduced. Here's how to file for unemployment insurance benefits, whether you're laid off, furloughed, or have had your hours severely reduced. Fill out an application through your state's unemployment websiteYou should apply for unemployment insurance as soon as you're no longer working. Depending on the state, unemployment insurance claims can be filed in person, on the phone, or online. "Start with your state's unemployment insurance benefits site.

ID.me said it was reviewing the panels' findings and did not have immediate comment. Congress began investigating ID.me after former ID.me employees, government watchdog groups and lawmakers complained the company had been unprepared to handle an onslaught of unemployment insurance applications early in the pandemic. While Reuters and other media last year reported on the waits, investigators said their analysis definitively showed that issues had been widespread. The Democrat-led committees are continuing to investigate other concerns about ID.me, including the accuracy of its facial recognition system and the adequacy of its support for non-English speakers. Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Bradley Perrett and Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Jobless Claims Fall Slightly in Tight Labor Market
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Gabriel T. Rubin | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, decreased by 4,000 last week, the Labor Department said. Filings for U.S. unemployment insurance fell slightly last week and remained near historically low levels, in a sign the labor market remained tight. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, decreased by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 222,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. Weekly claims have hovered close to their 2019 average of 218,000 since early September.

ID.me responded that calling its fraud estimate baseless or too high was premature because government auditing was ongoing. Congress began investigating ID.me after former ID.me employees, government watchdog groups and lawmakers complained the company had been unprepared to handle an onslaught of unemployment insurance applications early in the pandemic. While Reuters and other media last year reported on the waits, investigators said their analysis definitively showed that issues had been widespread. ID.me said it regretted the long waits but described them as "short-lived and temporary and caused by historic fraud." The Democrat-led committees are continuing to investigate other concerns about ID.me, including the accuracy of its facial recognition system and the adequacy of its support for non-English speakers.

☆ New Swedish government to cut fuel taxes, boost defence, police in budget
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

STOCKHOLM, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Sweden's new right-wing government will cut fuel taxes and give extra cash to the military and police in its first budget since winning a general election in September, it said on Monday. "The starting point for the budget is to make sure that the Swedish economy can withstand the difficult economic times that are ahead of us," the four parties said in an article in Dagens Nyheter newspaper. The four parties gave no figure for how much the main budget measures would cost or by how much the government would increase spending. However, the government has previously said it would cost around 6.7 billion Swedish crowns ($620 million) next year to cut fuel taxes, with an extra 5 billion to go to defence and around 5.8 billion for maintaining higher levels of unemployment insurance introduced during the coronavirus pandemic. ($1 = 10.8254 Swedish crowns)Reporting by Simon Johnson; editing by Grant McCoolOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Labor costs show slower rise, while trade deficit widens and jobless claims nudge lower
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( Jeff Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The cost of labor rose less than expected, but low productivity helped keep the pressure on inflation in the third quarter, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Unit labor costs, a measure of productivity against compensation, increased 3.5% for the July-to-September period, below the 4% Dow Jones estimate and down from 8.9% in the second quarter. Labor market data released Thursday showed that the jobs picture hasn't changed much. Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, increased 47,000 to 1.485 million, the Labor Department reported. The jobs data come the day before the Labor Department releases its nonfarm payrolls report for October, which is expected to show a gain of 205,000.

☆ If a recession comes, don't count on unemployment insurance — states aren't ready to give you benefits
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The result: Many states pay little and for fewer weeks, and it takes over a month to get benefits. And, if you do need to access UI benefits, they might not arrive for a while. Right now, according to the TCF report, just 15 states are doing that. Black workers are more likely to live in states with lower benefits. Many states have cut how many weeks workers are eligible for benefits over the last decade or so.

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