LANSING — The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency is beginning to collect benefit overpayments that they say were mistakenly distributed.
The UIA says that overpayments may have occurred if someone made an error on their application, if they weren’t able to work or gave knowingly false information to the agency.
The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity has already sent letters to recipients that they say were overpaid.
Anyone who has claimed unemployment insurance since March 2020 could be included in the clawback.
Ongoing lawsuits have prevented the department from collecting overpayments since the start of the pandemic.
Overpayment information and resources for waiver requests can be found with your Michigan Web Account Manager.
Potential reasons for a waiver include financial hardship, inaccurate wage information or agency error.
The first payments from recipients are due on Monday, Sept. 29. More information can be found with the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Any protests must be filed within 30 days of receiving notice about the overpayment.
The department is also holding informational sessions on the payments on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Michigan’s unemployment insurance has an error rate of about 20%.
That puts Michigan in the higher half of error rates from around the country — other states range from the single digits, up to 30% or higher.