UI High Dollar Report, Employment & Training Administration (ETA)

Executive Order (E.O.) 13520, requires that the U.S. Department of Labor (Department) compile quarterly reports on high-dollar improper payments identified within the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program.

State UI agency Benefit Payment Control (BPC) units are responsible for identifying and recovering UI overpayments. The Department requires state agencies to report the number of high-dollar overpayments identified by state BPC operations on the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) 227 - Overpayment Detection and Recovery Activities report. Current reporting instructions for the ETA 227 report are included in UI Program Letter No. 8-12, Change 1 (July 27, 2015), and define fraud and non-fraud high-dollar overpayments as:

"...total overpayments to an individual on a claim exceeds [sic] $25,000. Overpayments may be a single overpayment or multiple overpayments established during or prior to the reporting quarter however, the high dollar overpayment is reported for the quarter in which the cumulative amount overpaid to an individual on a claim exceeds $25,000."

For states that are not currently reporting high-dollar data on the ETA 227, or did not submit a completed ETA 227 report, the Department will provide sample counts from the Benefit Accuracy Measurement (BAM) survey. BAM is a statistical survey of paid and denied UI claims that collects information on high-dollar overpayments. BAM covers the three largest permanently authorized unemployment compensation programs: State UI, Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE), and Unemployment Compensation for Ex-Service members (UCX). State BAM investigators are required to complete 95 percent of their sample cases within 90 days of selection.

Although overpayments for all of these programs, including high-dollar overpayments, are part of the population from which BAM samples are drawn, BAM surveys only a small percentage of total UI paid claims. Therefore, the number of UI benefit recipients with high-dollar overpayments identified through BAM is significantly less than the number of high-dollar overpayments in the population.

The below links provide the high-dollar payments on a fiscal quarterly basis.