HARRISBURG —
Pennsylvania paid out more in improper unemployment benefits than any other state in the nation – totaling $690 million in 2012, according to estimates by the federal Department of Labor.
The state paid three times more in improper payments than neighboring states New Jersey, New York and Ohio.
The state Department of Labor and Industry believes the federal data is inflated, but even if the state’s adjustment is made, Pennsylvania still paid about double the overpayments of the neighboring states.
In response to the problem, Pennsylvania has launched a number of fraud-busting strategies to prevent people from collecting improper payments and recoup the money from people who should not have received it, said Sara Goulet, press secretary for the state Department of Labor and Industry.
The Labor Department announced earlier this year that it has launched an initiative to crack down on county inmates who are improperly collecting unemployment while sitting in jail. But the federal data indicates that fraud by inmates and others who are not “able and available to work” only accounted for 1.5 percent of the unemployment fraud in Pennsylvania over a three-year period ending in 2012.
Much more common was fraud involving cases where people didn’t bother looking for work or found jobs and continued collecting unemployment, which accounted for more than one-third of the overpayments. The other major problem involved episodes in which an employee was fired or quit and then obtained unemployment, which accounted for about one-quarter of the improper payments.
The first and easiest way to ensure that people do not get improper unemployment benefits after they get jobs would be that those workers would stop reapplying for benefits.
However, if a worker continues to apply for benefits, the Labor Department will not realize that the worker should be bumped off the unemployment rolls until the employer files paperwork indicating that the person has been hired.
The Labor Department has begun to use a federal New Hire Database to more quickly identify when people who have been collecting unemployment land jobs, Goulet said. Using the new database helped the department decrease improper payments to no-longer-unemployed workers by
$30 million from fiscal 2011 to fiscal 2012, Goulet said.
Pennsylvania had not previously documented such a prevalent issue with people reportedly collecting benefits while not satisfying work search requirements, Goulet said.
The Labor Department has created an unemployment integrity task force to sort out how to solve some of those problems, she said.
In March, state Rep. Fred Keller, a Republican from Union County, plans to introduce legislation that would tackle the issue of uncertainty over whether an employee is qualified to collect unemployment.
The bill would spell out more clearly that a worker should not qualify for unemployment if he or she loses a job for violating work rules, threatening others in the workplace, showing up to work intoxicated, or repeatedly missing work without a legitimate excuse.
Keller said the intent of the legislation is to help make sure that people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own can get benefits, but that employers and other workers are not expected to help provide benefits to people who have lost their jobs for improper workplace conduct.
While Pennsylvania paid out more in improper payments than any other state, the error rate in the state’s Unemployment Compensation program is not as high as the error rates in Indiana and Nebraska, Goulet said.
In addition to trying to do a better job of preventing benefits from going to people who don’t qualify for them, the state is garnishing federal income tax refunds to recoup improper benefits, Goulet said.
In November, the state began notifying nearly 18,000 people that they owed a combined total of almost $81 million and that the Labor Department would intercept their federal tax refunds. The state received $5.3 million this way in just two weeks, so far this year.
Click here to subscribe to The Tribune-Democrat print edition.
Click here to subscribe to The Tribune-Democrat e-edition.
Voters Could Elect LA's First Female Mayor
Huge Tornado Kills Dozens Near Oklahoma City
Raw: Rescuers Pull Tornado Survivors to Safety
Oklahoma Gov: 'Hearts Are Broken' After Tornado
Raw: Walking in a Flattened Okla. Neighborhood
Raw: Rescue Workers Search Oklahoma School
Raw: Witness Describes Scene After Okla. Tornado
Raw: Aftermath of Massive Tornado in Oklahoma
Raw: House Burns After Massive Oklahoma Tornado
Raw: Tornado on the Ground in Oklahoma
Split-second Choice Ended With NY Student Dead
White House Backs 'Shield Law' for Media
Wave of Attacks Kills Scores in Iraq
Pug Life on Display at Wisconsin Festival
Company Promises to Make All Snail Mail Digital
Analyst: Tumblr Fills Void in Yahoo's Offerings
Commuters Face Delays After Conn. Train Accident
Raw: Swarm of Tornadoes Slams Plains
Raw: Fierce Bombing in Qusair, Syria
RAW: TV Staff Take Cover From Tornado
