North Cook News

Rep. Deanne Mazzochi recently spoke out out on unemployment debt in the state.

SB2803 would allocate $2.7 billion to pay down Illinois' Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund debt, which currently stands at around $4.5 billion. Rep. Mazzochi criticizes Democrats for not paying down the debt in its entirety.

"A sponsor of legislation should not respond with 'I'll take your word for it' when questioned about what we in the legislature need to do to get out of debt and into compliance with the law," Mazzochi said. "The Unemployment Insurance Fund is $4.5 billion dollars in debt. IDES does not have adequate protections in place to detect and prevent fraudulent jobless claims and the Pritzker Administration still won't say just how much of that money is from fraud. We had an opportunity to responsibly use federal relief dollars to pay off our unemployment insurance debt and avoid tax increases or benefit reductions. Instead, Democrats chose to leave the fund in the hole and unnecessarily accruing interest."

SB2803 would allocate $2.7 billion from the State Coronavirus Urgent Remediation Emergency Fund to pay down the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund debt. State Sen. Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) and Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) are chief sponsors of the legislation.

Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Kristin Richards told the Illinois Senate that more than 18% of unemployment insurance payments were paid "improperly," The Center Square reported. Richards did not provide an estimate of the dollar amount of fraud, but stated that Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania have estimated between $4 billion and $6 billion in fraudulent payments.

The legislation passed the House last week by a partisan vote of 68-43, WSILTV reported. If the plan passes the Senate, Governor Pritzker will need to approve it promptly in order to meet a federal spending deadline.

House Republicans supported using federal relief dollars to pay off the debt in its entirety. Illinois received more than $8 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021, according to NBC.

"The Illinois Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund must, by law, have cash reserves of $1 billion, and currently, because of the COVID unemployment claims - some of which were valid, some of which were fraudulent, the governor won't tell us how much in each category, we don't know - we're $4.5 billion in the hole, not including that $1 billion mandatory reserve," Mazzochi said. "So, Leader Harris, that means we need to put $5.5 billion into the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund to be out of federal debt and fully compliant with our statutory reserve requirement, true?" Greg Harris responded, "I'll take your word for it."