The Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency, UIA, told roughly 350,000 people last month they must repay their benefits. The state agency is seeking to recover $2.7 billion from workers who it says were overpaid benefits, meaning they got money when they weren’t supposed to, mostly in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the pandemic.

A court order had blocked the state from recouping these pandemic-era overpayments since December 2022. But it has since been lifted, as collections started again on Sept. 29. …

[L]awyers are worried, in some cases, the agency might be demanding benefits back from people who shouldn’t have to pay it. “Some folks probably are, unfortunately, going to be making payments voluntarily just because they don’t want anything worse to happen,” said Tony Paris, an attorney from the Sugar Law Center in Detroit. …

“When it comes to like who’s going to bear the weight of the mistake that happened at the end of the day, it shouldn’t be the worker and the law provides that it shouldn’t be the worker,” said Jacob Fallman, UIA Policy Coordinator at the Sugar Law Center.

See full story by Rose White at MLive.

Some pandemic-era unemployment insurance claimants who were at one point told they weren't eligible for benefits — but later won their case through an appeal hearing — are now being told by Michigan's Unemployment Insurance Agency that they owe the money back, attorneys representing these claimants say. …

In one case, Tony Paris, deputy legal director at the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, said one of his clients won a hearing and was found eligible for benefits in September 2024. The UIA never appealed it, he said, and the decision became final. Now, his client is getting a bill for about $30,000.

"She's not alone," Paris said in an email. "I've spoken with dozens of people, most former clients whose appeals (or) hearings I won years ago, who are now being asked to make payments."

See full story by Adrienne Roberts ad the Detroit Free Press.