Why don’t eligible workers receive unemployment insurance?

The Unemployment Insurance (UI) system is plagued by under-receipt. We investigate the reasons likely-eligible individuals do not receive benefits. We find this is largely driven by erroneous beliefs about ineligibility, which are correlated with proxies for worker sophistication and information access. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we find misinformation about eligibility increased dramatically surrounding the expiration of the extra weekly UI payments in August 2020, suggesting uncertainty about UI programme extensions contributes to misinformation and suppresses programme take-up.