Weekly jobless claims are inaccurate and the unemployed are being underpaid, watchdog says

The Department of Labor has been both miscounting the amount of people receiving unemployment benefits and underpaying those under a special program instituted to address the coronavirus pandemic, according to a government watchdog report Monday.

Issues dealing with the surge in those filing claims for the new programs aimed at addressing the special circumstances of the pandemic have led to some problems, the General Accountability Office said. Mistakes have moved in both directions, with recipients sometimes undercounted and at other times overcounted due to multiple individual filings and issues particular to some states including California and…