Unemployment Benefits

Gov. Mike DeWine discontinued the benefits in June.

Filings for unemployment benefits had been slowly ticking up in January. But the last two weeks of reported numbers show an explosion of claims. And the state’s job and family services agency is now flagging tens of thousands of claims filed in those last two weeks.

More than 1.5 million Ohioans – nearly 13 percent of the state’s population – have received some sort of unemployment assistance since the pandemic began last spring.

A new law that sends $650 million in federal CARES Act money to Ohio communities to help with pandemic-related costs also includes a potential overhaul...

Payments to more than a quarter of a million non-traditional unemployment cases in Ohio are being halted and are under investigation. The state says...

For unemployed Ohioans, the additional $600 weekly Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation added to their state benefits is set to expire tomorrow. Congress has not passed a new coronavirus relief package, and local jobless residents worry they will not be able to make ends meet.

The fund that the state uses to pay jobless benefits is now broke – which was predicted even before the pandemic. And now state leaders are struggling...