Arizona overpaid more than $300 million in COVID-19 pandemic unemployment assistance
Published: Monday, July 24, 2023 - 2:51pm
Updated: Monday, July 24, 2023 - 5:23pm
Arizona overpaid recipients of a federally funded unemployment program by more than $300 million.
About 68,000 people who got Pandemic Unemployment Assistance were either overpaid or received money when they weren’t supposed to in the first place.
About 62,000 those had received money due to errors at the state Department of Economic Security.
A DES spokesperson says that was due to the short timeframe the checks were dispersed, and the fact that Arizona’s unemployment system wouldn’t process the federal claims.
The spokesperson said those who received money at the fault of the department will typically get repayments waived. There was no immediate data showing how much DES has collected in repayments.
