EDD effort to claw back unemployment benefits may hit state’s poorest anew

A NEW STATE policy may require nearly 900,000 Californians to return their unemployment benefits because they may not have been working or looking for work. But some researchers worry the clawback campaign could force low-income individuals to pay back thousands of dollars they no longer have.

The state Employment Development Department began issuing notifications of the proof-of-work requirement last month to one-third of California’s 2.9 million Pandemic Unemployment Assistance recipients. The federal program, which ran from March 2020 and ended in September, was aimed at helping people who don’t usually qualify for unemployment benefits because they are freelancers or small-business owners.