Matt Belanger recalled laughing with his wife in May while bringing in the mail at their St. Helens home. But as he sifted through it, he opened a letter that he said cast a “really negative feeling on the house for several days.”
For a year, Belanger, 36, was among hundreds of thousands of Oregonians receiving unemployment benefits after losing their jobs because of the pandemic.
Belanger, a laid-off budtender, recalled reading through the letter from the Oregon Employment Department. He described it as confusing and bureaucratic. But one part seemed clear: He wasn’t eligible for benefits and had been overpaid money that he’d have to pay back to the department.
“They didn’t send me any warning,” said Belanger. “It was all of sudden, ‘You’re overpaid.’”
Belanger panicked. He’d already had his car repossessed while waiting nine weeks for the department to process his initial claim last year. He and his wife had a new baby. They worried they’d lose their short-term rental where they lived.
He wasn’t alone. The department sent out similar notices to tens of thousands of other Oregonians receiving similar benefits.
In May, the Oregon Law Center and Legal Aid Services of Oregon brought a federal lawsuit against the department on behalf of Belanger and others alleging that thousands of unemployed Oregonians could see their financial lifelines cut as they struggled to comply with confusing new requirements or were left unaware of them.
The legal action resulted in a settlement reached with the Employment Department in June giving people like Belanger more time and clarity on how they can keep their benefits.
“We think this settlement will help a lot of people get their benefits restored or at least give them a chance,” said Emily Teplin Fox, an attorney with the Oregon Law Center.
But with a deadline looming, she still worries that tens of thousands of Oregonians struggling from the recession could still be on the hook.
The dust-up concerns the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a program created by Congress last year for self-employed and gig workers who lost work but weren’t eligible for traditional unemployment insurance. The program was expanded to cover laid-off workers who had exhausted their regular benefits.
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Recipients of the program, administered by state governments, could “self-certify” that they lost work because of the pandemic. In late 2020, Congress required recipients to provide more documentation proving their past employment.
In response, the Oregon Employment Department began sending out notices and emails to recipients of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, giving them 90 days to provide documents. But the lawsuit called the notices “contradictory, confusing, and misleading” and said many emails went to spam folders.
Oregonians who sold products at festivals, ran small house-painting businesses or otherwise pieced together income from gigs were left in the lurch, Fox said.
She said recipients were told they could submit signed declarations from past employers. But the department offered conflicting information on whether they needed to be notarized, and some were rejected as a result, she said. Other times, the department made errors, she said.
Oregon’s Employment Department didn’t make anyone available for an interview with Street Roots. But it said in a statement that it’s “been dedicated to making sure the rules for this new and temporary federal program were as clear as possible for people to follow so they could receive critically needed benefits.”
According to the lawsuit, the department rejected 2020 tax returns as proof even after it told recipients they could submit a return from that year or 2019. The department also rejected tax returns for being submitted as an image document with an “.img” suffix or having hand-written markings on them, the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, at least 5,800 Oregonians turned in additional documents to meet the requirement. But the department responded with boilerplate rejection notices that offered no explanation. The rejections also meant recipients hadn’t been eligible for benefits received in 2021 that they would have to pay back.
“I don’t understand this paperwork,” Belanger recalled of the notice he received. “The way they write it and phrase it, it’s confusing.”
Belanger, who now lives in Portland, said he and his wife were stressed for days after getting the notice. He tried requesting a hearing. The appeal form asked for a decision number, but there was no such number on the notice. He tried submitting his 2020 tax return, but it was rejected without explanation.
According to legal filings, the department got back to Belanger with answers on what documents would work and restored his benefits after the lawsuit was filed.
Sharon Wurtz, of Linn County, lost her job with a traveling carnival because of the pandemic and later a job as a nanny, according to the lawsuit. She qualified for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance but only heard about the additional proof-of-employment requirements from a Facebook group. She submitted tax returns and letters from her previous employer, but they were rejected by the department without explanation, the lawsuit states.
Wurtz, who was displaced by last year’s wildfires, lost her benefits for over a month, causing her to go without medications and nearly had her motorhome repossessed, according to the lawsuit. Her benefits were also restored after the lawsuit was filed.
Under the settlement, Oregonians who saw their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance stop or were ordered to pay it back have until Sept. 4, the date the program ends, to submit adequate documents. The department also promises to offer explanations to those who had their documentation rejected. It has committed to offering more information on its website and to responding promptly to those who reach out.
The department said in a statement, “We always have been dedicated to providing people as much information as possible so they could successfully complete eligibility requirements and receive their benefits and that is the overall objective of the Settlement Agreement, which was drafted and accepted by both parties, without any admission of liability, and resolved all the claims for relief.”
According to the statement, approximately 21,300 Oregonians claiming Pandemic Unemployment Assistance provided documentation that didn’t meet federal requirements, and another 26,000 didn’t provide any proof. The department said it’s been reaching out to all these people through phone calls, emails and mail.
Fox said the numbers show that nearly half of all Oregonians claiming Pandemic Unemployment Assistance have been affected. Those who don’t meet the requirement could see the money come out of tax returns, see reductions in future benefits or have collectors sent after them, she said.
She said she remains concerned about getting the word out and recommends that people who affected contact the department as quickly as possible.