Michigan paid out more than $3.3 billion on pandemic unemployment claims to people who had no history of work or wages earned in the state, according to a new audit that said officials intentionally shut down anti-fraud checks to speed up payments.
Now, the state is about to bump up against the three-year time limit for trying to claw back some of those overpayments, Michigan’s auditor general says.
The audit portrays the state’s Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) as bungling its way through the early days of the pandemic, rushing to get money out the door with little regard for the crush of bogus claims that flooded in alongside legitimate ones.