LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) announced Friday that it would be working to issue more overpayment waivers for Michiganders.
The agency noted that this latest round of waivers is focused on individuals who were asked to repay unemployment benefits because of unclear instructions regarding gross earnings versus net earnings.
When eligible individuals are identified, they will be issued a waiver for the overpayment.
“We are moving aggressively to reform the UIA to address the mistakes of the past and improve service for everyone in Michigan,” said Julia Dale, UIA Director. “Our top priorities are providing better service and removing bad actors. Already, we’ve issued 55,000 waivers for people who needed help and did nothing wrong, but that’s not good enough.
“We won’t stop fighting until we’ve corrected past mistakes made by this agency so that not one innocent Michigander will face consequences as a result of asking for help they needed.”
The UIA is then planning on focusing their attention on issuing waivers to eligible claimants who incorrectly filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. The UIA says these waivers will be issued because of unclear instructions, in which claimants provided the agency with gross earnings as opposed to net earnings, resulting in an overpayment of benefits.
“We are aware that there are issues related to gross versus net income calculations on Pandemic Unemployment Assistance weekly benefit amounts,” Dale said. “UIA is performing an analysis to determine the total population impacted by this issue. The U.S. Department of Labor has approved waivers for this group, and we are working hard to identify everyone who was affected so that we can issue the waivers.”
As of earlier this month, the UIA has waived over $4.3 billion in overpayment debt for more than 400,000 Michiganders.
The UIA overpaid a total of about $8.5 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits.
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