Double dip for furloughed workers: Thousands will get to keep back-pay AND unemployment checks after being sent home for shutdown

Tens of thousands of federal government employees filed for unemployment benefits during October's partial shutdown, and those in many states won't have to pay the money back – even though Congress guaranteed back pay to make up for the time they spent off the job.

The federal government collects unemployment insurance funding from employee payrolls, but it's the states that dole out the money to qualifying unemployed Americans. (The U.S. Treasury reimburses states for unemployment payments made to federal employees)

Federal workers show their identification as they arrive for work at the Jacob Javits Federal Building in the Manhattan borough of New York October 17 - as they return to work

Different states are handling the double-dip payments differently.



Oregonians will be off the hook completely. I nvestigators with the Franklin Center's Watchdog.org website found that because of an administrative rule, about 1,300 federal workers there will qualify to keep both their back-pay and their unemployment checks.

'We are currently reviewing that rule in [light] of this situation,' said Craig Spivey, a public information officer for the Oregon Employment Department. 'The rule that was written was not written for this type of situation.'



Virginia residents, including civilian staffers at the Pentagon in suburban Arlington, will have to pay back every penny.

'We’ll send letters saying they were overpaid, and by how much,' Virginia Employment Commission spokeswoman Joyce Fogg told the Alexandria Times . 'Hopefully, they’ll send back a check.'

If not, collection agencies and courts could be called in to recover the funds. Fogg estimated that that the maximum weekly payout of $378 may have gone to as many as 6,200 federally employed Virginia residents while they were furloughed.

Virginia residents, including civilian staffers at the Pentagon (pictured) in suburban Arlington, will have to pay back every penny



Federal workers in Illinois, too, will have to return their unemployment payments after they receive their back-pay from Washington, D.C.

A total of 577 Illinoisans who work for Uncle Sam were paid a total of $231,174 during their furloughs, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

In a statement, the agency said it would inform all of them that if they don't repay the money, it could be reclaimed from them by withholding their income tax refunds.



In California, officials say they plan to demand rebates from those federal workers, but the California Employment Development Department told the San Francisco Chronicle that it's still 'awaiting final official guidance' from the U.S. department of Labor.

"States will have to use the guidance we provide and apply it to their own state laws, U.S. Labor Department spokesman Jason Kuruvilla told the Chronicle. 'Some will make them pay it back, some will allow them to keep it.'

About 700,000 workers nationwide were furloughed during the partial federal government shutdown, which lasted from Oct. 1 to Oct. 16.

