Advocates say some people applying for state unemployment benefits have had trouble doing so for the last two years. They’re asking Pennsylvania’s Labor & Industry Department to more fully address those issues.
More than two years after the first pandemic-related business shutdowns, tens of thousands of unemployment claims continue to plague Pennsylvania’s unemployment compensation system.
The state has struggled to distinguish between fraudulent and legitimate claims, which some said led many unemployed Pennsylvanians to deal with cumbersome verification systems designed to root out fraud.
In all, the agency estimates it owes $19.4 million to tens of thousands of people who were erroneously charged an inflated interest rate between 2006 and 2016.
In the first week of August, roughly 640,000 people were receiving the extra $300 per week.
Cyber criminals have been targeting public benefits across the country throughout the pandemic, harvesting personal information that has been leaked through various data breaches to file new claims on behalf of real people.
