Labor Department proposes requiring five weekly job search activities for jobless benefits in every state

People collecting unemployment benefits would have to complete at least five job search activities every week, in every state, under a proposed rule the Labor Department published in the Federal Register on November 10. Claimants would also have to report them each time they certify for a week's payment, before any money is released.

The department says federal law has required jobless workers to be "actively seeking work" since a 2012 amendment to the Social Security Act, but that states enforce it in very different ways. It also says work search errors remain one of the main reasons for improper payments in the program, whose improper payment rate is above the 10% target set by federal law.

How far states are from five

As of January 1, 2025, a few states generally required five work search activities a week, a few required four, nearly half required three, some required two and the rest one, according to the proposal. Some set different numbers for urban and rural areas, and some use qualitative standards such as "quality not quantity." Nearly all states write the requirement into statute, the department says, so most would need new legislation.

To estimate the extra searching, the department grouped about 100 million continued weekly claims filed in 2025 by each state's minimum. Where a state sets no number, it counted one activity, and where the number varies, it used the lower one.

By our arithmetic, that puts about 92% of claimed weeks in states asking for three or fewer. Assuming 30 minutes per extra activity, the department puts the added time at about 133.5 million hours a year. In the week ended October 24, about 1.7 million people were claiming regular state benefits after seasonal adjustment, an advance figure, or about 1.5 million before adjustment, the department's latest weekly claims report shows.

What would count, and who would be excused

States would have to accept employer contacts, including job applications, interviews and skills tests with a specific employer, as well as registering with placement agencies and asking one's union for a referral. They could add job fairs, career center services, workshops and training, or certification exams. The department is also asking for comment on letting states use a points system that gives some activities more weight, as long as claimants reach five points a week.

People in state-approved training, self-employment assistance, work-sharing programs or registered apprenticeships would be treated as meeting the requirement, as would union members who check in weekly with a hiring hall. States could also excuse a week for workers with a firm return-to-work date within eight weeks, federal employees idled by a funding lapse, new claimants who file in the last 72 hours of a week, jury duty or emergency hospitalization that prevents a search, and those who have accepted a job starting within four weeks. After a federally declared major disaster, states whose laws allow it could pause the requirement for up to 26 weeks.

One practice would end: states could no longer issue a warning instead of finding a claimant ineligible for a week without the required search.

The case for it, and the caveats

The department points to a randomized experiment in Washington State in 1986 and 1987, analyzed in a 2016 study, in which claimants subject to work search tests received $429 to $484 less in benefits, in dollars of the time, and about three fewer weeks of payments than claimants with no work test. Applying those results to the 5.3 million people who received regular benefits in 2025, it arrives at $6.4 billion to $7.3 billion a year less in payments. The department warns that these figures are illustrative, because today's claimants already face at least a one-activity minimum.

The proposal also lists drawbacks. It says the evidence on the quality of jobs found under tougher rules is less conclusive, and that some people may take work sooner than they otherwise would, which could affect their wages, benefits and job stability. It acknowledges that the improper payment rate could rise for a time as states and claimants adapt, and it did not put a figure on the cost to states of new laws and computer systems.

Worker advocates have argued the other way. In model state legislation published on October 5, before the proposal and not in response to it, the National Employment Law Project wrote that "one of the biggest barriers to UI recipiency and causes of overpayments can be work search requirements and reporting," and offered states language to make their rules more inclusive.

What happens next

Comments are open for 60 days on regulations.gov, under docket ETA-2026-0100. Any final rule would give states one year from its effective date to comply. Until then, each state's unemployment agency sets the work search rules for a claim.