(MPRN-Lansing) Thousands of Michiganders are were vindicated Friday. The state Unemployment Insurance Agency completed its review of tens of thousands of fraud cases Friday.
In 2016, an initial review of the agency found thousands of reversed accusations of unemployment fraud. The wrong determinations were the result, in many cases, of a computer system.
The latest review went through tens of thousands of unemployment fraud cases. The vast majority of those fraud accusations were reversed as a result of the review. Agency director Wanda Stokes said the agency is making changes to improve the system.
“We’re going to do everything that we can to make sure that we correct all the issues that we had and everything that’s in process to this point, and then just make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” she said.
Stokes said the agency has improved communication, strengthened service delivery and will work with lawmakers and advocacy groups to improve service. Almost 44-thousand cases of unemployment fraud will be overturned. And the state is in the process of returning over 20 million dollars to the falsely accused.
“We’re glad we’re at a point where we can bring some closure to the number of actual citizens and cases that are involved in this review,” Stokes said. “And then now start the process of going forward.”
Some say the 20 million dollar plus refund isn’t enough. Ron Bieber of the Michigan AFL-CIO says the state needs to repay every penny taken from the wrongly accused – with interest.
