COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) Director Matt Damschroder on Thursday provided an update on unemployment overpayments made over the course of the pandemic.

The overpayments are attributable to both fraudulent and non-fraudulent activity in both the traditional unemployment and pandemic unemployment assistance programs, and include any weekly monetary add-on the claimant received, called Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), according to Thursday’s news release.

As of Oct. 31, ODJFS had identified $5.4 billion in fraud and non-fraud unemployment insurance overpayments. This includes:

• $42 million in fraud-related overpayments in the traditional system

• $454 million in fraud overpayments in pandemic unemployment assistance

• $712 million in non-fraud overpayments in the traditional system

• $4.2 billion in non-fraud overpayments in pandemic unemployment assistance

Over this period of time, ODJFS paid more than $23.8 billion in benefits to more than 2.4 million claimants.

Fraud and non-fraud overpayment for cases where the agency issues an appealable determination is reported to the federal Department of Labor on a regular basis. Therefore, the numbers are fluid.

They change as pending unemployment claims are processed, as appeals are heard, and/or as the agency receives evidence that a previous non-fraud determination is identity theft.

A chart detailing the overpayments reported to date can be found at https://bit.ly/3CP13tI .