WASHINGTON, D.C. – An Ohio court is attempting to force U.S. taxpayers to retroactively pay nearly $1 billion in four year old pandemic era unemployment insurance (UI) benefits as the last remnant of a coordinated effort by activists to sue Republican governors for getting people back to work post-COVID, write Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08), Work and Welfare Subcommittee Chairman Darin LaHood (IL-16), and Ways and Means members Representative Mike Carey (OH-15) and Representative Max Miller (OH-07). The case is based on an informal Biden Administration guidance that wrongfully interpreted Congress’s intent under the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which created the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program to provide additional federal UI benefits during the pandemic. That program expired on September 6, 2021.
In their letter, Ways and Means Chairman Smith, Work and Welfare Chairman LaHood, Representative Carey, and Representative Miller outline why states made the prudent decision to end their FPUC programs, and the failed track record of similar lawsuits filed in other states:
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, Governor DeWine, and several other Republican-led states, ended their participation in the FPUC program early in June of 2021, three months before the program’s expiration. In many states, FPUC benefits resulted in claimants being paid more than when they were working, disincentivizing return to work efforts and exacerbating labor shortages. To more quickly re-start their economy, at least 26 states ended their participation in FPUC before the program’s statutory expiration.
“The Ohio lawsuit is the last remnant of a coordinated nationwide effort by activists to sue Republican Governors that ended FPUC early. Nearly identical lawsuits were filed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. All of these lawsuits have been dismissed.”
States’ participation in the federally-funded CARES Act UI program was voluntary and required by law to be administered under formal agreements entered into by each state with the Department of Labor. Despite there being no legal basis for the Biden Administration’s actions, a judge with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas ruled that the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services must reinstate its FPUC program and payout $900 million in retroactive UI benefits – including possible payments to fraudsters due to lack of documentation of eligibility – three and a half years after the statutory termination of the FPUC program. The State of Ohio has appealed the decision.
Read the full letter here.