Washington is one of 30 states to receive grants from the U.S. Department of Labor to strengthen systems that prevent payments of unemployment insurance benefits to people who don’t qualify for the benefits, and for recovery of improper payments.
Washington will receive grants totaling $5,840,443, the Department of Labor said Thursday. The department’s overall grants total almost $170 million.
The money will pay for programs including cross-matching of unemployment insurance payments with a national directory of new hires to prevent unemployment insurance payments to re-employed claimants. It can also be used to implement a state information-sharing system and to coordinate with a U.S. Treasury Department program which allows allocation of overpayments to federal income tax returns.
