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Law360 (May 15, 2020, 6:55 PM EDT) -- The U.S. Department of Labor has provided states with guidance on coronavirus-related changes to the federal-state extended unemployment benefits program, reminding them that failing to police benefits fraud could lose them federal funding for unemployment programs.
In its Thursday guidance, the U.S. Department of Labor reiterated that states "play a fundamental role in ensuring program integrity is maintained for all programs," a message that has been frequent in the agency's unemployment insurance program letters.
The agency noted that lying to state workforce agencies to get unemployment compensation benefits is a form of a fraud and that the CARES Act has provisions making those who fraudulently receive certain benefits ineligible for additional ones, among other things.
"States are expected to enforce these statutory provisions," the agency said in the letter. "Failure to do so would be a violation of the state's agreement to administer these programs and could result in termination of the state's agreement."
Specifically, the DOL provided the example of someone who quits their job for the purpose of receiving benefits and knowingly gives the state false information about the reason for their unemployment.
However, George Wentworth, an unemployment insurance specialist with the workers advocacy group National Employment Law Project, told Law360 on Friday he hasn't seen "any evidence of that."
The current administration seems to be "placing a very high emphasis on fraud prevention," but NELP thinks that focus is a "misplaced priority in the current climate," Wentworth said.
"There's been a continuing program integrity push from DOL, even predating this administration, but it's been considerably more heavy handed with this wave of guidance that's coming out with all the unemployment insurance programs associated with the CARES legislation," he said.
On Monday, the DOL issued an unemployment insurance program letter specifically on the topic of program integrity. The letter said that its purpose was to remind states about the program integrity functions related to the regular unemployment insurance program as well as the program integrity functions for the new ones.
The guidance Thursday described several temporary changes to the federal-state extended benefits program that resulted from the various bills addressing the COVID-19 outbreak, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, Emergency Unemployment Insurance Stabilization and Access Act, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Among other changes, the federal-state extended benefits program will temporarily be fully funded by the federal government, which usually splits the bill down the middle with states. And states will also be able to waive or modify work-search requirements for extended benefit recipients "on an emergency temporary basis in response to the spread of COVID-19."
Wentworth said that NELP would like to see the extended benefits program fully funded by the federal government permanently and hopes that Congress will revisit the program in the future.
--Editing by Jack Karp.
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