{"id":6186,"date":"2022-04-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/senatedemssandbox.com\/irwin\/2022\/04\/07\/unemploymentissuesupdate\/"},"modified":"2023-01-06T20:41:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T20:41:58","slug":"unemploymentissuesupdate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.senatedems.com\/irwin\/2022\/04\/07\/unemploymentissuesupdate\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment Issues Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dear Neighbor,\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many in our community and across Michigan have been dealing with issues related to unemployment assistance they received during this pandemic. My team and I have been working nonstop to resolve these issues and advocate for solutions at the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m proud to say that we have two bits of very good news. First, is that Governor Whitmer signed my legislation, Senate Bill 445.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In early 2020, Congress passed the CARES Act creating the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. This program was intended to help all full- and part-time workers out of work during the pandemic. When applying for and certifying for these benefits, some workers who were applying for federal unemployment benefits answered “no\u201d when asked if they were \u201cable and available for full-time work\u201d. They may have said no if they were a part-time worker, or if they were taking care of children or a loved one, or are immunocompromised and unable to work full-time. This disqualified them from ever collecting PUA benefits. Other workers answered “yes” when asked if they were \u201cable and available for full-time work\u201d and collected PUA benefits, but later the UIA determined they were not eligible for them and these workers received notices informing them that they needed to pay back the benefits they collected.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Senate Bill 445 turns off this \u201cable and available\u201d requirement for federal claims filed during the pandemic. Part-time workers and those who, at the time, could not work full-time will not have to pay back the benefits they received, or they will be able to collect the benefits they were wrongfully denied. This also means that the UIA will be able to focus on actual fraud.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you were denied unemployment benefits, or have received an intentional misrepresentation notice and\/or overpayment letter from the UIA specifically because of the \u201cable and available\u201d requirement, please contact my office here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
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To know if your claim was affected by this \u201cable and available\u201d requirement, your Notice of Determination, or Notice of Redetermination will list the \u201cIssue\u201d as either \u201cAbility\u201d or \u201cAvailability\u201d. It will look similar to the one below:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

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Secondly, Governor Whitmer secured the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s approval for eligibility waivers for Michigan workers who received PUA benefits. The UIA will be able to grant waivers to a broad set of workers who meet one of these criteria overpayments:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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  1. An individual responded \u201cno\u201d to being able and available for work and the state issued payment for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation without adjudicating the eligibility issue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. An individual was eligible for payment and the state issued payment at a higher Weekly Benefit Amount under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n