Federal data suggests that the program now has more beneficiaries than regular unemployment insurance. But there is evidence that both overcounting and fraud may have contributed to a jump in claims.
The largest surge by far last week was in Arizona, where the Labor Department reported more than 165,000 initial claims under the program, an increase from 101,000 the week before. Both weeks, only California — which has also reported widespread fraud — had a higher tally.
“We are reviewing over one million P.U.A. claims for likely fraudulent activity,” Brett Bezio, deputy press secretary of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, said in an email. To give a sense of the scale of the attempted abuse, he pointed out that the state had received nearly 2.7 million jobless claims during the pandemic, which represents 80 percent of Arizona’s work force.
While Pandemic Unemployment Assistance has been hit with allegations of fraud, another new program, Lost Wages Assistance, has struggled to pay any money at all.
President Trump created it last month with federal disaster funds after Republicans and Democrats in Congress deadlocked on a relief bill. The payments of $300 per week — half the amount of a federal supplement that expired at the end of July — are retroactive to the week that ended Aug. 1. But officials said there was money for no more than six weeks, so states have been told that the coverage ended Sept. 5.
More than 30 states have begun paying benefits, but “it’s kind of a zombie program,” said Michele Evermore, senior researcher and policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group.
“Every state seems to be doing it differently,” she added, with some paying a lump sum of $1,800 to cover six weeks after getting off to a late start.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/business/economy/unemployment-claims.html
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.