{"id":1669558,"date":"2022-10-03T08:09:42","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1669558"},"modified":"2022-10-03T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T12:10:12","slug":"inspector-general-46-billion-in-covid-unemployment-subsidies-probably-went-to-fraudsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/inspector-general-46-billion-in-covid-unemployment-subsidies-probably-went-to-fraudsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspector General: $46 Billion In \u2018Covid\u2019 Unemployment Subsidies Probably Went To Fraudsters"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Finspector-general-46-billion-in-covid-unemployment-subsidies-probably-went-to-fraudsters%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1669558&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Haley Joel Osment <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ZSNyiSetZ8Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sees dead people<\/a>. Government officials give them welfare benefits.<\/p>\n<p>That conclusion comes from a report recently released by the Labor Department\u2019s inspector general, providing an update on its investigations of pandemic-related unemployment fraud. Unfortunately, the document provides only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, both in identifying the scope of the problem and holding fraudsters to account.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>$46 Billion Down the Drain<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The inspector general <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dol.gov\/public\/reports\/oa\/2022\/19-22-005-03-315.pdf\">report<\/a> updated earlier documents quantifying the scope of potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance payments made during the pandemic. Specifically, the office examined four types of potential fraud: claims 1) filed in multiple states; 2) made in the name of deceased individuals; 3) using suspicious email accounts; or 4) filed by federal prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>The chart below demonstrates the growth in potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance payments made since March 2020.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The $46 billion figure underestimates the potential fraud, for several reasons. For instance, investigators did not have current data on federal prisoners, so could not update last year\u2019s estimate of suspicious payments in this category. The total also excludes potential fraud not included in one of the four categories \u2014 from claims made by state prisoners to those with less obvious red flags.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Little Accountability for Fraudsters<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oig.dol.gov\/public\/Press%20Releases\/DOL-OIG%20Pandemic%20Work%20Results%20in%20More%20Than%201000%20Individuals%20Charged%20with%20UI%20Fraud.pdf\">press release<\/a> accompanying the report hinted at the massive nature of the fraud. A few sentences discussed efforts to hold scammers to account:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>With less than 140 criminal investigators, the [inspector general] leveraged data analytics to direct its limited resources to those matters that pose the greatest risk to the [unemployment insurance] program. The [inspector general] is focusing on large-scale identity theft schemes involving multiple victims and organized criminal groups, including street gangs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, if someone doesn\u2019t belong to a gang, or \u201conly\u201d submitted fraudulent claims for a few thousand dollars (or even tens of thousands of dollars), he\u2019s not going to get prosecuted.<\/p>\n<p>The press release attempted to praise prosecutors for charging 1,000 individuals, and obtaining convictions that \u201chave resulted in more than 7,000 months\u201d \u2014 about 583 years \u2014 \u201cof incarceration.\u201d But given that investigators identified nearly $46 billion in fraud, the amount of accountability seems massively outweighed by the scale of the original crimes.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Government Empowering Scammers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The fraud in the Covid unemployment spending should surprise no one. The antiquated systems many states use to administer unemployment benefits (the program operates as a state-federal partnership) enabled scammers to game the system, even as individuals legitimately harmed by government lockdowns in 2020 struggled to navigate the stifling bureaucracy and claim benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Even now, federal officials have yet to fully cooperate with efforts to hold people to account, albeit after the fact, for their criminal conduct. The inspector general noted that its office has the ability to require that state workforce agencies (which administer unemployment benefits) provide data and information relevant to anti-fraud efforts \u2014 but only on a temporary basis.<\/p>\n<p>During the State of the Union address this March, the Biden administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/03\/01\/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-announce-new-steps-to-combat-criminal-fraud-and-identity-theft-in-pandemic-relief-programs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">made a big show<\/a> out of appointing a special prosecutor to tackle Covid spending fraud. Yet the Labor Department inspector general noted that the same Biden administration continues to slow-walk efforts that would give the IG the information it needs to fight fraud.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Costly Waste<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Two other points bear repeating. First, the Covid-era unemployment benefits at issue in the report paid many individuals more to stay home than they would have made working. That dynamic not only constituted bad policy by encouraging unemployment but also led to practical failures of implementation by encouraging fraud and scams.<\/p>\n<p>Second, the American people will bear the costs of this wasteful \u201cCovid spending\u201d \u2014 on fraudulent unemployment benefits and much else \u2014 for decades to come, as our debt continues to rise to unsustainable levels. From outright scams to spending on things like ski areas and baseball stadiums, the money frittered away on frivolous projects over the past two years will come at a steep price to the next generation. <\/p>\n<p>Democrats may have gotten more votes from their big-spending blowout, but our children and grandchildren will get stuck with the bill.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Haley Joel Osment sees dead people. Government officials give them welfare benefits. That conclusion comes from a report recently released by the Labor Department\u2019s inspector general, providing an update on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1669558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}