{"id":1744596,"date":"2022-11-19T06:06:03","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T11:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1744596"},"modified":"2022-11-19T06:48:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-19T11:48:07","slug":"new-york-paid-11-billion-in-fraudulent-unemployment-claims-in-a-single-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-york-paid-11-billion-in-fraudulent-unemployment-claims-in-a-single-year\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Paid $11 Billion In Fraudulent Unemployment Claims In A Single Year"},"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\">26<\/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%2Fnew-york-paid-11-billion-in-fraudulent-unemployment-claims-in-a-single-year%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=1744596&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>Add another infraction to the list of New York\u2019s crime problems: fraud. A report recently released by the state\u2019s comptroller found that, in the first year after the Covid pandemic hit, the state paid out at least $11 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims.<\/p>\n<p>That staggering sum reflects one state\u2019s worth of fraudulent claims in one year. And the fraud\u2019s far-reaching consequences will continue to hurt businesses while exacerbating inflation for families.<\/p>\n<h2>Fraud, Improper Payments Skyrocket<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osc.state.ny.us\/files\/state-agencies\/audits\/pdf\/sga-2023-21s3.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a> notes the explosion of unemployment insurance payments when lockdowns shut down most of the economy. From April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2021, the state paid out more than $76 billion in unemployment claims \u2014 a more than 31-fold increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>The skyrocketing caseloads, coupled with New York\u2019s generations-old UI computer systems, led to widespread fraud. During that same 2020-2021 period, the estimated fraud rate more than tripled to 14.48 percent, up from just 4.51 percent the prior year. Multiplying the 14.48 percent fraud rate by the amount paid out in benefits yields an estimated total fraud of just over $11 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, the news gets worse. In the following year, which ended this past March 31, the fraud rate in New York\u2019s UI program grew even higher, to 17.59 percent. All told, the improper payment rate \u2014 which includes payments made in the wrong amount or without the correct documentation, in addition to outright fraud \u2014 reached 28.89 percent in 2021-22. Put another way, nearly 3 in 10 unemployment dollars paid out by New York state either were paid incorrectly or fraudulently.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t hard to see in this chart how fraudulent and improper payments have soared in recent years:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/MArb-44q0isBkXG-0_r16nBE5zZ7x8KVmKR3xtJvVdowWCdHI41-PrSGD3TzghZvvrpMDO-ZUsroJJv5vVcgWSBiBs3Nt5rDU2CGSRPzXaLTONz7cHDDGt9DKRJfltINNNY2u_e-X4-0MKaoZI4ryrP_qT3ul8cF8M8RaKKXeUiVRE-VOXJ38w0WoFilOL3N7QYbQN1KKA\" alt=\"A chart from New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli in a report Tuesday shows the increase in the amount of improper unemployment payments made during the Covid-19 pandemic by the state Department of Labor.\" \/><\/p>\n<p><figcaption class=\"col-12 col-md-6 body-xs px-15 pe-md-0 ps-md-30 py-15 m-0 text-center\">State of New York Comptroller, Department of Labor<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>And the bad news doesn\u2019t even end there. Federal authorities have yet to calculate fraud rates for the pandemic unemployment assistance program, which provided aid to self-employed and \u201cgig\u201d workers who wouldn\u2019t normally qualify for traditional unemployment insurance. That means the $11 billion in fraudulent benefits New York state paid out in 2020-2021 represents an underestimate \u2014 and likely a sizable one at that.<\/p>\n<h2>Government Incompetence<\/h2>\n<p>Much of the report reads like a comedy of errors straight out of the \u201cKeystone Kops.\u201d For instance, the state\u2019s Department of Labor claimed when testifying before the state legislature that \u201cthe department had prevented over $36 billion in fraudulent UI payments.\u201d But the department couldn\u2019t provide the comptroller with basic evidence to document this claim, like how much in fraudulent payments were actually paid out before being detected or how the claims were recognized as fraudulent (e.g., through internal investigations or tips from ordinary citizens).<\/p>\n<p>I <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/10\/03\/inspector-general-46-billion-in-covid-unemployment-subsidies-probably-went-to-fraudsters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted recently<\/a> that many state unemployment systems operated on archaic computer systems, which New York\u2019s comptroller pinpointed as a source of many of the state\u2019s problems. The state\u2019s current system dates from the 1970s and 1980s, and audits going back more than a decade called for a new IT infrastructure. Ignoring those warnings didn\u2019t just lead to high overhead costs during the pandemic, as New York had to hire specialized contractors to fix their generations-old systems \u2014 it also left vulnerabilities that fraudsters readily exploited.<\/p>\n<h2>Businesses and Families Pay the Price<\/h2>\n<p>While scammers hit the jackpot by exploiting the weaknesses of New York\u2019s unemployment system during the pandemic, ordinary families will ultimately pay the price \u2014 quite literally.<\/p>\n<p>Because high spending on benefits during the pandemic depleted New York\u2019s unemployment trust fund, New York state businesses will face taxes of between 2.1 percent and 9.9 percent until the fund returns to balance. And beginning this past June, businesses also face an additional assessment of 0.23 percent so that New York can pay back the federal government for the bridge loan the state received from Washington to cover the overages in its own state UI trust fund.<\/p>\n<p>To put it more simply, New York businesses now face a cost of hundreds of dollars per employee for the next several years \u2014 partly to pay off the billions that fraudsters stole from a dilapidated unemployment system during the pandemic. And, of course, these businesses will pass the higher costs on to consumers at a time when families already face <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/16\/polls-show-bidenflation-is-killing-democrats-with-minority-voters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">backbreaking levels of inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>New York\u2019s recent increase in violent crime played a significant role in the midterm elections. But the comptroller\u2019s report demonstrated that New York\u2019s crime problems go well beyond violent attacks, as taxpayers and families will pay for the mugging they received at the hands of pandemic scammers for years to come.<\/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;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Add another infraction to the list of New York\u2019s crime problems: fraud. A report recently released by the state\u2019s comptroller found that, in the first year after the Covid pandemic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1743418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1744596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744596","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1744596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1743418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1744596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1744596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1744596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}