The government wants its money back.

Natalie Waits

Here’s your unemployment check.  Now pay it back.

CNN Money

Annalyn Kurtz

October 18, 2013

                Due to the government shut down thousands of government employees were left jobless, bringing in no sort of income.  How do you support a family when you aren’t making any money? Thousands of those government employees filed for unemployment benefits for those weeks they were left without pay.  During the first week of the government shut down, seventy thousand federal employees filed for unemployment benefits.  With a total of 20,000 claims in Maryland, 16,000 claims in Washington D.C., 7,600 claims in Pennsylvania, and 6,000 claims in Virginia there are still claims to be processed  even after the government has reopened.

                So how much money do the once unemployed government workers need to give back?  Why should they have to give back any of it?  After all, it was the government’s mistake.  It’s unclear just how much money was overpaid.  Since then, the DC Department of Employment Services has instructed the bank to cancel the transactions that have not gone through yet.  As of now,  the DC Department of Employments Services paid $500,000, a total of 1,700 payments.  “If they have not actually taken any money out, we will then send them a notice and reverse the payment,” said Lisa Mallory, directory of the agency.  “If they have accessed the funds already, we will tell them the amount that needs to be repaid.”  They will have 60 days to repay the money without interest, but some states were able to avoid the overpayment problem with just luck. 

                This isn’t right in my opinion.  The DC Department of Employment Services made a mistake, they can’t just make all those people pay back all of the money.  Pennsylvania has a waiting period before the checks go out, which in this case was October 25^th, and since the government opened back up before that they don’t have to pay overpayment fees.  Not everyone is as lucky as Pennsylvania.  This is not the first time the unemployed workers have had to pay back the money they received from the DC Department of Employment Services, during the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 this problem occurred as well.  They claim that these payments that needed to be returned are minimal, but what about the employees with families that needed that extra money? What are they going to do?