ANN ARBOR, MI (MPRN)-- Governor Gretchen Whitmer is downplaying the potential that hundreds of thousands of Michiganders may have to pay back federal jobless benefits they received during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The problem is the state included four ways to claim the benefit that were not approved by the federal government. Now the state is asking nearly 650,000 recipients to refile their forms to show they qualify.
Whitmer urges the people affected to just fill out the forms.
“It is frustrating. And trust me, I would prefer not to go through this. But when the federal government tells us we got to have it in these columns, one of these three columns, we've got to ask the people of our state to just fill out that paperwork.”
The federal program was created to provide unemployment benefits to people who did not qualify for state jobless benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.