[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 108 (Thursday, July 25, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    INTRODUCTION OF THE PERMANENTLY ENDING RECEIPT BY PRISONERS ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DAVID G. REICHERT

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 25, 2013

  Mr. REICHERT. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Permanently 
Ending Receipt by Prisoners Act, also known as the PERP Act. I am 
pleased to be joined by Representatives Todd Young, Mike Kelly, Tim 
Griffin, Jim Renacci, Tom Reed, and Charles Boustany, all Members of 
the Committee on Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, which I 
chair. As a former sheriff and now Chairman of this Subcommittee that 
has jurisdiction over the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, this 
bill blends the expertise I developed in my past career with my present 
committee responsibilities.
  Under existing UI program rules that operate in all States, an 
individual must be able, available, and actively seeking work in order 
to be eligible to collect UI benefits, which are paid to those who are 
unemployed through no fault of their own. Individuals confined in 
jails, prisons, and other penal institutions are by definition not 
``able and available'' to work and have historically been presumed to 
be not eligible for UI benefits.
  Despite this fact, news articles in multiple States have revealed a 
nationwide epidemic of unemployment benefit payments to incarcerated 
individuals. Recent headlines include: Illinois: ``State: More than $2M 
in Unemployment Benefits Went to Inmates'' (10/9/12); New Jersey: 
``Audit Says 20,000 Inmates Were Mistakenly Paid Nearly $24M in State 
and Federal Benefits'' (5/29/13); Pennsylvania: ``Inmates Collect 
Millions in Unemployment Benefits in Philadelphia Jails'' (2/20/13); 
and South Carolina: ``Government Waste--Inmates Collecting Millions in 
Fraudulent Unemployment Checks'' (2/21/13). The list unfortunately does 
not end there, and these and other articles make it clear that 
taxpayers are wasting millions of dollars each year on unemployment 
benefit payments to prisoners.
  We must make it very clear that incarcerated individuals should not 
be receiving unemployment benefits, and that States need to make 
affirmative efforts to end this obvious abuse. Unemployment benefits 
are designed to support people who are able and trying to find work and 
provide for their families, but who have fallen on hard times. It is an 
injustice that the tax dollars of law-abiding citizens are being used 
to provide assistance to people who have broken the law and simply 
should not qualify for these benefits.
  The PERP Act provides the solutions to this problem by taking the 
following steps:
  Barring States from paying UI checks to local, state and federal 
prisoners, strengthening a current implied prohibition because 
prisoners are not ``able and available'' for work; and
  Requiring State UI agencies to regularly compare UI rolls with 
currently available inmate rosters to ensure UI checks are not paid to 
current inmates. At a minimum, States must access and use prisoner 
information the Social Security Administration has collected and used 
since the late-1990s to prevent the payment of Supplemental Security 
Income (SSI) benefit checks to currently incarcerated individuals. This 
current data match is simple, quick, and efficient, and can readily be 
replicated by States to ensure that UI benefit checks are not paid to 
prisoners.
  During 2011, the UI program made a staggering $10.3 billion in 
improper payments, some of which were to individuals in our nation's 
jails and prisons. Those payments were made because under current 
practice too many States rely on the inmate to report their change of 
residence to the jail so that their UI benefits would end. Not 
surprisingly, few inmates volunteer to stop collecting these checks, 
and no benefit program should rely on the honesty of inmates to ensure 
taxpayer funds are properly spent. This legislation ends the practice 
of relying on self-reported information by inmates to prevent this type 
of UI benefit misspending. It does so simply by expecting all State UI 
agencies to tap into an existing Federal database of prisoners, already 
used to ensure that inmates do not collect disability checks. This 
system is fast, efficient, and affordable.
  Again, I want to thank my colleagues on the Human Resources 
Subcommittee, Representatives Todd Young, Mike Kelly, Tim Griffin, Jim 
Renacci, Tom Reed, and Charles Boustany, for their support as original 
cosponsors of this bill. I invite all Members to join me in supporting 
this important legislation and look forward to its speedy consideration 
so that we can ensure we put an end to the outrageous practice of 
prisoners collecting benefit payments intended for the truly 
unemployed.

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