1205-0353_supporting_statement_ETA_9048_9049___3_18_2013_Final

Supporting Statement, OMB Control No. 1205-0353: Worker Profiling

And Reemployment Service (WPRS) Reports, ETA 9048 and ETA 9049

A. Justification

1. Circumstances that make the collection necessary. Public Law (PL) 103-152 created the WPRS program and mandated that Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants who are determined likely to use up all of their benefits must participate in reemployment services as a condition of their eligibility to receive benefits. These reports are necessary for Employment and Training Administration (ETA) staff to have adequate oversight of state program activities and to ensure that program objectives and requirements are being met.

The WPRS program was established to identify, as early as possible in the claims series, those claimants who are likely to exhaust their benefits. The goal is to provide the reemployment services that would be most helpful to the claimant as soon as possible. Statistical models or characteristic screens are employed to identify those claimants who are most likely to exhaust benefits. This identification process allows states to target scarce reemployment service resources to those most in need.

This submission seeks to extend the OMB clearance for two reports: 1) the ETA 9048, Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services Activity Report and 2) ETA 9049, Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services Outcomes Report. The ETA 9048 report provides information on the basic quarterly activities of the WPRS program, reemployment activities for UI claimants who are likely to exhaust their benefits. The report tracks WPRS claimants from the time they are profiled through the delivery of services. The ETA 9049 report provides information about reemployment outcomes for participants in the WPRS program.

2. Use of the Information. These reports provide counts of services and outcome measures for those served by the states and are used to monitor the program. The data uses counts of reemployment services and the subsequent wage records of WPRS participants to analyze the effectiveness of the reemployment services intervention. Thus, states may make adjustments in their programs to make them more effective. Section 4(a), paragraph C of PL 103-152 requires that states collect information for purposes of improving their methodology of identification. The ETA 9048 report is the count of activities of WPRS claimants and the ETA 9049 is a report of wage records after claimants have received services. These reports track the reemployment services provided to claimants and the successes of referred claimants.

3. Information Technology. States have been encouraged to automate the WPRS process as much as possible. Selection of participants, feedback from the service providers, and searches of wage records for reemployment outcomes are all automated processes. States establish agreements with service providers to obtain necessary WPRS data about the services provided. All reporting is done electronically through an automated reporting interface that states use for the submission of all UI-related data.

4. Duplication. There is no duplication as there is no other source of data that captures the impacts of the reemployment services provided through the WPRS program. ETA has other information collections that describe reemployment services such as the Labor Exchange Reporting System (OMB number 1205-0240) but this collection describes all reemployment services provided, and does not provide adequate description of the specific population served by the WPRS program.

5. Small Business. This collection does not impact small businesses.

6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection. Collecting this information less frequently would not allow for monitoring changes, nor evaluation of the impact or effectiveness of various reemployment services over time.

7. 5 CFR 1320.5. Collection is consistent with 5 CFR 1320.5.

8. Federal Register Notice. In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the public was allowed 60 days to review and comment through the Federal Register Notice posted on November 27, 2012 (Vol. 77, No. 228). No comments were received.

9. Payment or Gifts. No payment or gifts were provided to respondents.

10. Assurances of Confidentiality. There is no personally identifiable information collected on the ETA 9048 or 9049. Data collected is aggregate for all program participants and contains no information on any one specific individual. States have no expectation of confidentiality for the data they submit to ETA and the public burden statement reflects this.

11. Questions of a Sensitive Nature. No questions of a sensitive nature are contained on this report.

12. Federal and Respondent Cost. Respondents are the 53 State Workforce Agencies (SWAs). Annual costs are:

ETA 9048: 53 SWAs X .25 hrs. X 4 report submittals per year = 53h.

ETA 9049: 53 SWAs X .25 hrs. X 4 report submittals per year = 53h.

TOTAL ONGOING BURDEN 212h per year.

Record Keeping: States maintain electronic records on all claimant activities. The burden on record keeping for the particular activities is estimated to be six minutes per claimant. Therefore, the estimated annual data burden for record keeping would be:

53 SWAs x 6min transaction x 25,334.98 submittals= 1,342,754h per year

3^rd Party Disclosures: Based on data for claimants who received reemployment service during CY 2012, the average estimated burden on claimants per referral is two hours. Therefore, the estimated burden on claimants to receive required reemployment service is:

1,342,754claimants x 2h per claim x 1 annual response =2,685,508h

Category	Respondents	Hours Per Response	Annual Response Frequency	Total Responses	Annualized Hours
ETA 9048	53	0.25 hours	4	212	106 hours
ETA 9049	53	0.25 hours	4	212	106 hours
Record Keeping	53	6 minutes	25,334.98	1,342,754	134,275.4 hours
3rd Party Disclosures	1,342,754	2 hours	1	1,342,754	2,685,508 hours
Unduplicated Totals	1,342,807			2,685,932	2,819,995 hours

13. Cost Burden. This, and all other routine reporting for Unemployment Insurance, is paid for by monies allocated to states for administration. There are no breakouts for specific reports. This is a well established report so there are not start-up costs.

14. Cost to the Federal Government. There is no cost to the Federal government.

15. Burden Changes. This ICR requests an increase of 2,685,720 responses and 2,819,889 hours.

The Department previously considered information exchanges between States and beneficiaries and the corresponding recordkeeping to be a routine business practice that would have occurred absent Federal action. The Department now believes at some burden may exist only because of the Federal requirement. In the absence of data on actual routine business practices in this regard, the agency is claiming the full burden. This change in analysis results in a burden increase of 2,685,508 responses and 2,819,889 hours.

In addition, this ICR reconciles a previous inadvertent inconsistency in how the supporting statement and ROCIS entries treated burden for Forms ETA-9048 and ETA 9049. Previously the data entry suggested 1 single 30-minute response per State. This ICR counts two 15-minute responses, one for each form, per State. This change does not change the burden hours but the number of responses increases by 212.

16. Publication. Data collected from states is a matter of public record and is made available on the ETA web site at the following address: http://ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/profile.asp

17. Display of OMB Expiration Date. The OMB inventory number and expiration date will be displayed on the bottom of all report facsimiles.

18. Exceptions to the Certification Statement. There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

B. This collection does not contain a survey.

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