Lansing, MI – Local State Senator Joe Bellino recently criticized Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s leadership after Michigan’s nonpartisan Office of the Auditor General reported her administration’s Unemployment Insurance Agency made an estimated $245.1 million in improper payments.
The payments took place between January 2020 and October 2022 to dead people, prisoners, people in long-term care facilities, UIA contractors, department employees, and people outside the typical working age range.
The OAG’s audit said that the UIA paid $35.6 million to incarcerated inmates, almost $20 million to dead people, $5.5 million to its own department’s employees, and nearly $178 million in unemployment aid to people whose ages likely would have precluded them from getting jobless aid.
The report revealed the agency continued to issue payments even after discoveries that an individual was dead or in prison, noting the UIA did not identify or act to evaluate whether the payments were appropriate.
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