About 10,000 U.S. households reporting at least $1 million in income received nearly $100 million in unemployment compensation in 2024, according to IRS data obtained by Sen. Joni Ernst, continuing a practice Congress moved to restrict under a law enacted last year.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

WASHINGTON — About 10,000 U.S. households reporting annual incomes of at least $1 million collected nearly $100 million in unemployment benefits during 2024, according to Internal Revenue Service data obtained by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

The figures, provided by Ernst to The Washington Times, offer a new look at unemployment payments to high-income tax filers, an issue the Iowa senator has pursued for years through repeated attempts to restrict benefits for people earning seven-figure incomes.

Engineers, software engineers, attorneys, executives, managers and sales professionals were among the occupations most frequently associated with the high-income households that reported unemployment compensation, according to the newspaper.

California accounted for the largest number of million-dollar households receiving the benefits, followed by New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

The figures do not necessarily mean that a millionaire who remained personally employed collected unemployment benefits.

IRS data are based on tax returns, and married couples filing jointly can report more than $1 million in combined household income even when only one spouse earns most of that money. The other spouse could lose a separate job, qualify under state unemployment rules and receive benefits while the household’s combined income remains above $1 million.

Investment income, business earnings or other sources can similarly push a tax household above the $1 million threshold even after a claimant loses the wage-paying job on which an unemployment claim is based.

That distinction is important because unemployment insurance traditionally has not operated like an income-tested welfare program.

State unemployment systems generally determine eligibility according to a worker’s prior wages, employment history, reason for losing a job and continuing availability for work. The program is intended to provide temporary wage replacement after qualifying workers become unemployed through no fault of their own rather than determine eligibility according to total household wealth.

Ernst has argued that the structure can produce results that are difficult to justify to taxpayers when recipients continue reporting seven-figure household incomes.

Her office reported in 2025 that 14,972 tax filers with incomes of $1 million or more received $213.6 million in unemployment assistance in 2021. In 2022, 5,773 such filers received $57.6 million, averaging nearly $10,000 each.

“Too many of the idle rich are living high off the hog, collecting government checks for not working, while at the same time earning a million dollars or more from some other side venture,” Ernst said when advancing legislation to change the rules in 2025.

Congress ultimately adopted her proposal as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law July 4, 2025.

The Senate had adopted Ernst’s amendment unanimously.

The enacted provision, titled “Ending Unemployment Payments to Jobless Millionaires,” prohibits federal funds from being used to provide specified unemployment compensation to an individual whose wages during the applicable base period equal or exceed $1 million. It also bars federal funds from covering administrative costs associated with those payments.

The law requires unemployment applications to include a procedure allowing claimants to certify that their base-period wages were below $1 million. State agencies administering affected unemployment programs are also directed to use available systems to verify a claimant’s wage eligibility when possible and to recover overpayments from people who were not entitled to receive them.

The restriction applies to weeks of unemployment beginning on or after July 4, 2025.

The statutory standard is narrower than simply declaring every member of a household reporting more than $1 million in total income ineligible.

Congress based the new restriction on an individual claimant’s wages during the unemployment insurance base period rather than the adjusted gross income reported by a married couple or household on a federal tax return. Congressional Research Service analysis says the provision applies to specified federally financed unemployment programs and benefits, including unemployment compensation for federal employees and former service members, extended benefits and future federally financed unemployment extensions or supplements.

That means the 2024 IRS figures and the eligibility test enacted in 2025 are not exact equivalents: the IRS data cited by Ernst identify tax returns with million-dollar income that also reported unemployment compensation, while the new federal rule examines the individual claimant’s base-period wages.

The unusual treatment of outside income has roots in the structure of the unemployment insurance system.

Ernst has repeatedly pointed to longstanding Labor Department requirements that unemployment compensation eligibility focus on employment-related qualifications rather than a claimant’s broader financial resources. Federal rules require claimants to remain able and available for suitable work, while states retain considerable authority over other eligibility and disqualification rules.

As a result, having investment income, a high-earning spouse or other substantial resources historically did not automatically make a laid-off worker ineligible for unemployment compensation.

The issue predates the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022, Ernst’s office said IRS data showed nearly 20,000 people earning $1 million or more received $264 million in unemployment benefits during 2020, when Congress dramatically expanded unemployment assistance in response to pandemic-related business closures and job losses. More than 200 recipients reported incomes of at least $10 million, according to the senator’s office.

Ernst and then-Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., subsequently introduced bipartisan legislation seeking to stop unemployment payments to millionaires.

In 2023, Ernst renewed that effort with Tester and then-Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., after obtaining additional IRS figures. Her office reported at the time that nearly 15,000 tax filers earning at least $1 million received more than $200 million in unemployment assistance during the year reflected in those records.

The proposal did not become law until the Republican-led reconciliation package passed in 2025.

When the Senate considered Ernst’s amendment, she said nearly 6,000 millionaires had received almost $58 million in 2022 and argued unemployment insurance should not subsidize people who retain substantial other sources of income.

“Able-bodied millionaires shouldn’t expect handouts made possible by the overtaxed and overworked Americans,” Ernst said.

“My amendment ends freebies for free-loading fat cats by disqualifying anyone making a million dollars or more from being eligible for unemployment income support,” she added.

Ernst said at the time that the provision could save taxpayers as much as $100 million over a decade. Her office later described the measure as one of the spending reductions she secured in the final legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office reached a substantially smaller federal budget estimate for the provision itself, according to a Congressional Research Service review, estimating changes in federal revenues and outlays of less than $500,000 over the 2025-2035 period.

Unemployment compensation is taxable federal income. Recipients ordinarily receive Form 1099-G reporting the amount they were paid and must include unemployment compensation on their federal income tax returns, which is what makes IRS analysis of the recipients possible.

The latest 2024 figures show that the practice continued before the new restriction took effect: roughly 10,000 households with million-dollar incomes reported unemployment payments totaling close to $100 million.

But the data alone do not establish that those claimants committed fraud or improperly received benefits under the laws that were in place at the time.

A high-income household could legitimately qualify under existing unemployment rules if one member lost covered employment while another spouse continued earning substantial wages, or if the household received large amounts of investment, business or other income unrelated to the job loss.

The policy dispute instead centers on whether taxpayers should provide unemployment compensation in those circumstances.

Congress answered at least part of that question in 2025 by restricting the use of federal unemployment funds for claimants whose own base-period wages reach the $1 million threshold — a change intended to prevent future federal jobless payments to some of the country’s highest-paid workers.

Clarify the IRS data limitationsReduce repeated historical statistics
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