Wealth Finance

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A nationwide crackdown is coming for people fraudulently drawing unemployment payments — those who were never eligible and workers who keep getting checks after they return to work — a $17 billion benefits swindle last year alone, say federal officials.

With the poor economy lingering and the jobless rate remaining high, Rhode Island and other states are stepping up efforts to stop the fraud and improper payments.

As much as 30 percent of the wrong payments in 2010 went to people who had returned to the workforce but continued to claim benefits, according to Dale Ziegler, deputy administrator for the Office of Unemployment Insurance at the U.S. Department of Labor. Those payments came even after a 2009 executive order by President Barack Obama seeking new policies to cut payment errors, waste, fraud and abuse.

Ziegler said states will be required to submit plans by Sept. 30 to the federal government on how they plan to curb such payments, Ziegler said.

“This is a national concern,” said Raymond Filippone, assistant director of income support at the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training. “States across the country are stepping up and looking at overpayments and detection.”

Since last year, Rhode Island now has four investigators assigned to ferret out double-dippers scamming the system, Filippone said and will add a fifth this year. The state has also for the first time retained a collection agency to recoup incorrectly paid payments.

Filippone said the state has paid out $33 million in overpayments since 2008. The May unemployment rate in Rhode Island is the third highest in the country at 10.9 percent.

Providence resident Jose L. Roque, 43, is among 15 people charged last month with bilking the state’s unemployment benefits system. He faces one count in state court of obtaining money under false pretenses for allegedly accepting more than $20,000 in benefits over nearly four years while working for a Warwick landscaping company, court records show.

He was released pending a pre-arraignment conference next month. Roque has yet to enter a plea. Officials say people convicted of this crime are usually ordered to pay restitution as punishment.

“I kept working and collected at the same time. I know that’s my big mistake,” Roque said in a telephone interview. “I feel real bad. I’m sorry for that. … Before I had problems. You know, now I got more problems.”

Since the economic dive began in 2008, 126 Ocean State residents have been criminally charged with defrauding the unemployment benefits system, said state police Capt. James O. Demers.

Similar Posts:

• Unemployment checks are back in the mail again
• New York’s jobless 99ers protest on Wall Street
• Suggestion box is now open: How would you change the tax system?
• 36 States See Drop in Unemployment Rates as Interest Rates Remain Low
• Unemployment rate climbs to 9.8%, highest since April