The Connecticut Department of Labor is defending a decision to claw back more than $8 million in unemployment benefits paid out since the start of the pandemic.
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor said overpayments could have happened because of fraud, or because of errors on the part of filers, employers or the agency itself.
The department said it had about 10 times its usual number of people filing for unemployment at its peak during the pandemic. The federal government requires all state labor agencies to identify and recover overpayments.
The department said it could establish payment plans for people to pay back the money over several months. As a last resort, it said it could garnish wages or intercept tax refunds to get the money back.
