California’s attempt to claw back more than $20 billion in unemployment insurance (UI) payments from those who didn’t qualify for benefits has flopped, with 80 percent of the 1.4 million recipients contacted failing to respond to the government’s request to prove their eligibility.
The federally funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program was designed to help people, such as small business owners and self-employed independent contractors, who wouldn’t normally qualify for Employment Development Department (EDD) benefits.
