Ohio must try to get back around a billion dollars in pandemic unemployment benefits from the federal government and distribute it to Ohioans who have been waiting since June 2021. A Franklin County judge has ordered Gov. Mike DeWine to obtain those funds, which Ohio didn’t get because he ended Ohio’s participation before the federal program closed.
“There were right around 300,000 people who were denied $300 a week for 10 weeks, so $3000 each. That's $900 million. This is almost a billion dollars," said Marc Dann, who filed the lawsuit in July 2021.
Dann, a Democratic former state attorney general, filed the lawsuit to challenge DeWine’s decision to end the pandemic unemployment assistance program in June, three months early. Several other Republican-run states did the same thing. Dann had argued lawmakers didn’t give DeWine the authority to refuse the maximum benefits offered by the feds.
The state ended the pandemic assistance program, which was supposed to run through September 2021, at the request of the Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Restaurant Association, which said it was making it hard for businesses to find workers.
Judge Michael Holbrook had ruled against Dann's request to stop the state from halting the program, saying the law is clear that DeWine wasn’t obligated to continue the program but that he was sympathetic to the plaintiffs. The case worked its way up to the Ohio Supreme Court, which rejected it as moot in 2022. But Holbrook ordered briefings on other issues in the case, keeping it alive.
Dann said if the DeWine administration does follow the order, the money will "flow into the state into the hands of some of the poorest people in Ohio."
“I bet you 95% of the class members don't have $400 in the bank for an emergency, at least that's based on the data that's out there," Dann said. "This money will come in, and they'll pay their bills, they'll pay for $7 eggs for their kids for a few weeks. And hopefully, they will benefit from it.”
The state has indicated it will appeal. Dann said he's asked for a conversation with them before they do, to make the argument against an appeal.
