Thousands of Hoosiers are stuck having to repay millions of dollars in overpaid unemployment benefits to the state.
A mother of two, who has researched and has experience in dealing with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, has started a Facebook group to give advice to people who are struggling to figure out what to do, thanks to a lack of transparency from the department.
“These people shouldn’t be losing their homes, they shouldn’t be losing everything that they own,” said Jennifer Glynn to WISH-TV. “I’ve had people tell me that they were on the brink of depression until I helped them, that they were on the verge of giving up until I gave them hope.”
She posts helpful tips and talks directly to people who have been impacted by overpayments. So far the state has only waived $412 in overpaid benefits while having recouped around $6 million.
“I’m not surprised (at that),” Glynn said. “They’re going to start garnishing the benefits that they’re receiving now and that’s how they’re slowly collecting money.”
Glynn said many of the people she’s talked to say that it is difficult to get in touch with a claims representative with the DWD. She is offering up her advice free of charge in order to try and relieve people of the stress they are feeling.
Glynn said she is doing more for people impacted by the overpayments that the DWD is, and challenges every worker at the DWD to do the same thing she is doing.
3 comments
While there probably does need to be more transparency and guidance from the DWD, the real solution is to make arrangements with the DWD to pay back the extra FREE money that wasn’t rightfully yours in the first place.
I guess I’m just old fashioned.
You make that sound so simple. Evidently you don’t understand that DWD paid out the “extra” money causing people to “believe” they were eligible for it. So they used the money to survive. Now DWD is telling these people to pay back money they don’t have. It wasn’t “extra free money,” it was money they thought was theirs!!!!
The federal government opted to add $600 a week to ensure that the average worker had a 100 percent wage replacement which is crap because most people on unemployment didn’t even make that to begin with. My wife tried to opt out of the extra $600 and collect $119 a week and was told you can’t. Now we have to pay back $5000 and she makes $800 a month. How is that fair Farley???