CLEVELAND — Of the 21,447 initial claims reported last week, approximately 900 have been flagged for potential fraud, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
From April 18 to April 24, the total number of initial jobless claims filed in Ohio over the last 58 weeks —3, 264,308—was more than the combined total of those filed from 2013-2019.
Ohioans filed 242,365 continued jobless claims last week, which was 533, 937 fewer than the peak last year. That includes both traditional unemployment claims and claims for extended benefits.
ODJFS said it has enhanced its identity verification and fraud detection methods to intercept fraud attempts resulting in a significant drop of initial claims being filed.
Since the initial claims are returning to a normal level ODJFS said it will no longer provide the numbers of fraud flags as part of the weekly initial jobs report.
Over the last 58 weeks, ODJFS has distributed over $9.6 billion in unemployment compensation payments to over 992,000 Ohioans.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
