A new chapter for Michigan's unemployment insurance system | Opinion
Picture two Michiganians who lose their jobs on the same Friday. One is a machinist in Macomb County with a straightforward layoff. She wants to file her claim that night on her phone and get back to her job search. The other is a seasonal worker in rural Michigan who held three jobs last year, has no reliable internet at home and has a question no website can answer. RELATED: Michigan is updating its unemployment website. Here's what you need to know For years, Michigan’s unemployment system served them both the same way. They waited in the same queues, called the same phone lines and competed for the same limited staff time. The simple question took too long, and the hard one took longer. That is the problem we are setting out to solve. On Nov. 9, the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) will launch MiUI, a modern benefits system that will replace the 14-year-old platform workers use today. Employers have used MiUI to pay taxes and file reports since February. The technology matters, but the bigger change is the philosophy behind it: let technology do what technology does best, so people can do what people do best. Software is
