State Won't Offer Unemployment Benefits To Furloughed Federal Workers

Around 7,000 federal workers in Ohio aren’t receiving paychecks because of the government shutdown. And none of them will be offered unemployment checks from the state either.

The DeWine administration said the Department of Job and Family Services has advised against offering jobless benefits because the state could be penalized for not following the federal rules – which will translate to a tax hike on businesses that pay into unemployment.

And DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney also said those benefits would have to be taken back from those workers eventually.

“It would be unfair for us to have to go out and ask them to repay money that they would have received from this because they will be receiving the back pay at some point,” Tierney said.

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