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Legislature votes to bolster unemployment insurance system
JACK HOGAN of Capital News Service
April 7, 2021
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Emergency measures to help struggling businesses pay less in unemployment insurance taxes while simultaneously granting more funding to the unemployed were voted out of the Maryland Legislature last week and await signature from Gov. Larry Hogan, R.
Raising from $50 to $200 the weekly amount of uncounted pay that unemployment insurance claimants can receive is among the measures, which come as the Maryland Department Labor continues to receive thousands of claims each week.
The department reported (https://www.dllr.state.md.us/employment/uicounty.shtml) receiving more than 12,000 new and reclassified claims last week, the lowest mark of the month.
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Screen Shot of change.org petition calling for the resignation of Maryland Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson.
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It has been a year since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and the state has made significant improvements to its unemployment call centers, such as beefing up staff and expanding hours of operation. But substantial problems remain as many Marylanders have been waiting months to receive their benefits and some are even unable to get a claims representative on the phone.
Several Facebook support groups started by Maryland residents have shared advice on how to handle the bureaucratic nightmare that taxpayers have been facing as many try to get someone anyone to pick up a phone and help them navigate through the system.
Unemployment claims in Maryland have increased greatly since the start of the pandemic, and more than half filed since January were found to be fraudulent.
The Maryland Department of Labor has flagged 65% of all unemployment claims since January 2021 alone for fraud, and of that percentage, 87% were actually fraudulent. We did not have the luxury of planning and preparing for a global pandemic that resulted in an 800% increase in our claim volume essentially overnight, Maryland Secretary of Labor Tiffany Robinson said at a Board of Public Works meeting Capital News Service attended Feb. 24.
The state s Department of Labor was unprepared for the exponential increase in claims due to the pandemic, as they became understaffed and also had to deal with hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims, according to Robinson.