Oct 14, 2020 3 min read

The ID.me system, implemented in Pennsylvania last week to dissuade unemployment compensation fraud, has gotten an early thumb’s up from Labor & Industry officials.

“We’ve tried it out for a few days, and so far, so good,” Susan Dickinson, the UC benefits policy director, said Tuesday afternoon during the department’s weekly virtual news conference.

L&I contracted with ID.me, a security vendor, to provide an additional step of identity verification in the wake of a recent surge of fraudulent claims in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. The mid-September claims were filed using stolen identities.

PUA fraud was initially detected in the spring, an issue that L&I secretary Jerry Oleksiak has described as “not a Labor & Industry problem, not a Pennsylvania problem, but a national problem.”

Those benefits are for self-employed, independent contractors, gig workers and others not eligible for regular unemployment compensation.

ID.me is a follow-up to anti-fraud measures that previously had been put into place. Claimants who had been receiving PUA payments do not have to verify their identities through the new system, but new PUA applicants must. They will receive directions on how to do so through a communication from ID.me.

“It’s up to the person to verify themselves,” Dickinson said.

Labor & Industry temporarily held up payments on new PUA claims while ID.me was being installed. Dickinson, however, said the department has been paying new claimants – after they have been verified.

Oleksiak reminded residents they still can apply for funds through the Lost Wages Assistance program, a $300 weekly benefit for those who are or were fully or partly unemployed because of the pandemic. The retroactive payments cover a six-week period, beginning Aug. 1 and ending the week of Sept. 5, when LWA lapsed. He said the state has paid about $1.65 billion of the $2.8 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding it received through the program.

Labor & Industry reported that it has paid slightly less than $30 billion in total benefits, including $5.5 billion in regular UC.

L&I will have its 20th weekly town hall at 1 p.m. Thursday. It is open to the public, by calling 833-380-0719 or live-streaming at https://access.live/PAlabor.

“We get a great variety of questions at these (town halls),” Dickinson said. “We hear that it helps residents a lot, and it’s a good way for us to get feedback on what we are doing.”