Reuters: Politics: Workers furloughed in U.S. shutdown must return jobless benefits

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Workers furloughed in U.S. shutdown must return jobless benefits Oct 25th 2013, 20:45 Tweet Share this Email Print Reprints Federal workers enter the Ted Weiss Federal Building in the lower Manhattan area of New York October 17, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 25, 2013 4:45pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal employees furloughed during the partial shutdown of the U.S. government this month will have to return any jobless benefits they received given that Congress has approved retroactive pay, the Labor Department said on Friday. States will have to collect and send back to the federal government unemployment benefits granted to thousands of federal workers after Congress deadlocked over the U.S. budget and suspended most salaries for two weeks, according to a notice sent to state workforce agencies from Eric Seleznow, an acting assistant secretary at the Department of Labor. In the first week of the October 1-16 shutdown, the number of federal workers filing for benefits rose to 70,068, 50 times the number of filers the week before, according to the notice. Congress had approved paying employees for the furlough days once the budget issue was approved. Funds to cover the benefits come directly from the federal government, so states spent money only on administrative costs. Because of its state law, Oregon had said federal employees in the state might be able keep their benefits. The notice cleared up the confusion, and now the state will send letters to all those who received benefits requesting they return the money, said Tom Fuller, spokesman for the state's employment department. Almost all of the 733 people in Oregon who filed initial claims during the shutdown, collecting a total of $389,739 in benefits, were furloughed federal workers, said Fuller. An additional 1,153 had filed for benefits at some point earlier in the year, and re-opened their claims. The state must determine what portion of those claimants were seasonal workers laid off by the Bureau of Land Management and federal forests as fire season ended. (Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Mohammad Zargham) Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above.

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