The U.S. Department of Labor annually awards honors to states that have attained the best performance across the nation in some key operational areas of the unemployment insurance program. The USDOL Unemployment Insurance (UI) State Performance Excellence Awards reflect the breadth of UI operations and the performance areas most critical to operational success, and recognize the top-performing agency from small states, medium-sized states, and large states. The Honorees recognized this year have demonstrated top performance in the following categories: 1) Timely and high-quality appeals decisions; 2) Timely, proper, and high-quality eligibility decisions and benefit payments; 3) High quality tax operations.