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Olga Pierce

Olga Pierce is a reporter at ProPublica, specializing in data-driven stories.

Olga Pierce is a reporter, specializing in data-driven stories. Previously, she was deputy data editor at ProPublica.

She is a winner of the 2015 Deadline Club Award for Medical Reporting for her work on patient harm. In 2011 she received a Livingston Award for National Reporting and an honorable mention for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, both for her reporting on increasing corporate interference in the drawing of congressional districts. She also shared 2011 Scripps Howard and Society of Business Editors and Writers awards as part of a team focusing on foreclosures.

Olga has appeared on CBS News and C-SPAN, and her stories have been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune and the Hindustan Times in New Delhi.

She is a graduate of the Stabile Investigative Journalism Seminar at Columbia University, where she won a Horton Prize for health reporting. Olga is fluent in Czech and has a bachelor’s in international economics from Georgetown University.

Side By Side: Health Care Bill

Compare the Senate version of the 2010 Health Care overhaul bill with the final bill.

by Jeff Larson and Olga Pierce,

Kansas and Vermont Are the Latest Unemployment Insurance Debtors

Twenty-nine states plus the Virgin Islands are now borrowing money from the federal government to pay jobless benefits. Kansas and Vermont have joined the list, and increases in their employer taxes are not expected to solve their problems.

by Olga Pierce,

Mass. Unemployment Insurance Fund Goes Into Red

Massachusetts has joined 26 other states with unemployment insurance funds that are insolvent. So far, the states have borrowed more than $30 billion from the federal government just to keep benefit checks in the mail.

by Olga Pierce,

Unemployment Insurance Borrowing Now Greater Than During 1980s Recession

by Olga Pierce,

Explaining Obama’s Proposed ‘Budget Freeze’

The spending freeze announced by President Obama will affect only about one-eighth of the federal budget, meaning the other federal programs could continue to add to the deficit. So Obama’s 2011 budget would increase overall spending by 5 percent overall.

by Olga Pierce,

Unemployment Insurance Funds in Colorado and New Hampshire Go Bankrupt -- And Start Borrowing

by Olga Pierce,

Do You Have Experience Dealing With Your State’s Unemployment Insurance System?

by Amanda Michel and Olga Pierce,

Unemployment Insurance Tracker

Tracking how long state unemployment insurance trust funds will hold up.

by Olga Pierce and Jeff Larson,

Two Dozen States' Unemployment Funds in the Red, Nine More Within Six Months

The record 20 million Americans who collected unemployment insurance benefits last year landed on a safety net that was already deeply frayed. Now 25 states have borrowed more than $25 billion to keep benefits flowing after their trust funds ran dry, and the situation is deteriorating fast elsewhere.

by Olga Pierce,

Payroll Taxes Increase for Many Employers Across the U.S.

With the recession emptying unemployment insurance trust funds, many states are raising taxes on business owners, from a few dollars to nearly $1,000 per worker. And some states have started reducing or freezing the benefits that are paid out to the unemployed.

by Olga Pierce,