Mo. says prisoners wrongly got jobless benefits

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The Missouri labor department says it has discovered several people who received unemployment benefits while in prison.

The labor department says the discovery came less than a month after it started a new process in which it runs the names of unemployment benefit recipients against a list of state inmates. Prisoners are not eligible for jobless benefits because they are not available to work.

The agency says it initially found one prisoner who had filed for jobless benefits. That person was denied because he admitted quitting his job. The department then ran a retroactive check and found an additional 10 inmates who had filed for unemployment benefits, including seven who had received money and now owe the state about $14,000.