The House voted on May 11 to pass legislation aimed at incentivizing states to claw back fraudulently paid unemployment benefits made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill, H. R. 1163, known as the “Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act” passed in a 230–200 vote, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the legislation.
Under the legislation (pdf) states would be allowed to retain 25 percent of any amount recovered from overpayments of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation that were determined to be fraudulently made.
Amounts retained by the state must, however, be used to modernize employment compensation systems and information technology to “improve identity verification and validation of applicants.”…