A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Ohio residents to disburse nearly $1 billion in unused pandemic unemployment assistance that had been appropriated for Ohioans.
In a class-action lawsuit filed against Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) and the state, 320,000 Ohioans are fighting for that money. Ohio residents would have received the money in 2021 during the pandemic, but DeWine opted out of receiving it from July through September of that year.
“The extra pandemic money from the federal government was a lifeline,” Candy Bowling, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit, told 3News Investigates.
“I only got like $300 from the state, and I was used to bringing in over $600 a week, so it wasn’t really even half of what I was making before [becoming unemployed during the pandemic],” Bowling explained.
The money is sitting in an account with the U.S. Department of Labor….
