Levin: Michigan Violating Feds Order to Revisit Unemployment Penalties

Mich. Congressman alleges state fined 60,000 people on unemployment for fraud that likely never occurred.

A Michigan Congressman alleges the state’s unemployment system is violating a directive from the federal government.

Federal officials say Michigan must re-visit cases where unemployment recipients were accused of fraud.

In 2013 Michigan used an automated system to determine if people receiving unemployment insurance had committed fraud.

Between 2014 and 2015 alone, federal officials say, the system flagged nearly 30,000 recipients for fraud and penalized them a total of $57 million in fines, taxes and garnished wages.

But this year Michigan’s Auditor General found the computer was wrong in more than 90% of those cases that were appealed.

Congressman Sander Levin (D-MI) says the state now has a human in charge of the system.

But Levin says the state is not following a directive from the U.S. Labor Department to re-examine all of the roughly 60,000 total cases of alleged fraud and reimburse recipients for any penalties they were forced to pay.

Levin says if Michigan does not re-adjudicate those cases the Labor Department will be required to withhold more than $100 million in federal funding for the state because it would not be in compliance with the Social Security Act.  

Author

  • Quinn Klinefelter
    Quinn Klinefelter is a Senior News Editor at 101.9 WDET. In 1996, he was literally on top of the news when he interviewed then-Senator Bob Dole about his presidential campaign and stepped on his feet.