GDOL processes More Claims than past 10 Years while fighting Multi-Level Fraud

The Georgia Department of Labor (GDOL) announces it has processed 4,828,381 regular unemployment insurance (UI) claims since March 21, 2020, more than the last 10 years prior to the pandemic combined (4.8 million). In addition to a high number of claims, the GDOL is combating unemployment insurance fraud on multiple levels.  Over 60,000 individuals who have recently refiled for payments for a second year went back to work during the last year while still receiving unemployment benefits and did not report that they had returned to work. The claimant self attests that all information in the claim is accurate leading to potential fraud and overpayment charges. Also, almost 75 percent of individuals currently filing a claim are failing the identity verification requirement from the US Congress, indicating an overwhelming presence of fraudulent claims. Approximately 85 percent of current individual filers are not layoffs but are individuals that have quit or have been fired from their job. These types of separations always require a hearing and are not typically eligible. All of these challenges require individual attention and are slowing the processing procedures.  Over 234,000 jobs are listed on EmployGeorgia for Georgians to access.  The GDOL has paid over $21.8 billion in state and federal benefits in the past sixty weeks.  Last week, the GDOL issued $184.8 million in benefits, which included regular unemployment and federally funded Lost Wages Assistance (LWA) supplements, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), and State Extended Benefits.  Last week, regular UI initial claims totaled 24,553, down 888 over the week.