Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessments (RESEA)

About This Grant

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) program is a required partner in the broader public workforce system and provides unemployment benefits to individuals who have lost their employment through no fault of their own and who otherwise meet initial and continuing UI eligibility requirements. Beginning in 2005, the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration funded the voluntary UI Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment (REA) program to address individual reemployment needs of UI claimants, as well as prevent and detect improper benefit payments. In 2015, the Reemployment Services and Eligibility Assessment (RESEA) program replaced the REA program providing greater access to reemployment services in addition to services previously provided under the REA program. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, amendments to the Social Security Act permanently authorized the RESEA program and implemented several significant changes including formula-based funding and a series of requirements intended to increase the use and availability of evidence-based reemployment interventions and strategies. The permanent RESEA program has four purposes: (1) reduce UI duration through improved employment outcomes; (2) strengthened UI program integrity, (3) promote alignment with the vision of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and (4) establish RESEA as an entry point to other workforce system partners.