Ohio Department of Job and Family Services

The state of Ohio overpaid more than $2 billion in unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans during the pandemic. And a significant percentage of that money went to fraud. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports.

Some of the 140,000 Ohioans who have recently filed for unemployment may not be getting their checks soon due to another problem with fraud in the system for processing those claims. Statehouse correspondent Jo Ingles reports. 

134,000 gig workers, independent contractors and self-employed Ohioans who have been waiting on their unemployment claims for more than a month will now get paid after a weekend of required upgrades to the processing system.

Fraud in Ohio's unemployment system cost the state more than $330 million in the fourth quarter of last year.

Ohio’s unemployment system continues to be a challenge the for thousands who say it is slow and non-responsive.

Nearly 28 thousand Ohioans filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits last week, bringing the state's pandemic total to over 1.9  million.

Nearly 257 thousand people filed continuing claims. And the Labor Department says 712 thousand Americans filed first-time claims last week, down by 75 thousand from the previous week. The feds say it's the latest sign the U.S. economy and job market remain under stress, and many employers are still cutting jobs.

Nearly 13 percent of the state’s population has received some sort of unemployment assistance since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Since the pandemic began in March, Ohio paid 821 thousand regular unemployment claims and 608 thousand claims for federally funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. 

A new law that sends $650 million in federal CARES Act money to Ohio communities to help with pandemic-related costs also includes a potential overhaul for the process to apply for unemployment benefits. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports.

The state says an extra 20 weeks of unemployment benefits will be made available to eligible Ohioans once they have exhausted their other benefits. 

The state's unemployment compensation fund  is now broke – which was predicted even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state has not been denying anyone unemployment insurance benefits for COVID-19 related reasons, such as concerns about contracting coronavirus on the job or being ordered to quarantine.

Ohio's unemployment compensation fund is officially broke, and the state has asked to borrow more than 3 billion dollars from the feds so benefit payments may continue. 

Roughly 23 thousand Ohio workers sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic are now being told to return their unemployment insurance benefits, after waiting weeks to get them. 

The state has paid more than 3.8 billion dollars in unemployment insurance benefits to over 683 thousand Ohioans since mid-March, more than it's ever paid in a full year. 

The woman in charge of the state agency that administers the unemployment system was on the hot seat yesterday as a panel of state lawmakers questioned her about inefficiencies in the system.

This morning brought long-awaited news for the self-employed, independent contractors and 1099 workers in Ohio – the system to pay them jobless benefits is live.

Nearly a million Ohioans - 964,556 people - have filed for unemployment in the last five weeks, more than the combined total in the last two years.