If it's anything like California unemployment last time I used it (for paid family leave, not traditional UI), you can't actually “elect for direct deposit” in the simple sense; you get an ATM card and after benefits are first loaded you can go through a process to transfer the balance to your bank, and only then set up future deposits to be transferred automatically to your bank. The bank transfer is not instant, either, it's a 2-3 business day process.

The quickest way to get benefits out if you need it the first time is to withdraw the limit from the card at an issuing-bank ATM.

And, of course, the people.that are least employment-secure overlap significantly with the unbanked. Can't elect direct deposit if you don't have a bank in the first place.

At the end of the article, it states that 80% of the New Yorkers that receive unemployment benefits chose to receive them via direct deposit, and the 20% that didn't received them in the form of a debit card.

Right, what I’m saying, using California UI as an example, is that it's possible that there are implementation-detail-based reasons that people do not choose direct deposit, especially the large surge of new filers in the present predicament who often also had delayed benefits and thus were more likely to have urgent immediate need.

The 30,000 foot view of a program often obscures important details; information on California UI I've seen also refers to how many choose direct deposit vs. choosing an ATM card, glossing over the details of the mechanics of how that works which is actually that everyone gets an ATM card, and some people, after getting it, redirect the funds to their bank, which only happens as direct deposit after the first time (and not really even then, IIRC, it still goes into the account tied to the card and then is immediately automatically transferred.)

In TX I think you got one or two weeks on the card before direct deposit when I was on it 2 years ago. The times before that, it was only on the card, which a PITA.

Not everyone has a bank account. Wikipedia lists the Bronx as one of the places where this is prevalent[0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted this much, it's a very reasonable question. Heck, the #1 upvoted comment is this is exact same question phrased in a different way.