{"id":1929686,"date":"2023-05-12T11:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T15:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-passes-bill-incentivizing-states-to-claw-back-fraudulent-unemployment-insurance-benefits\/"},"modified":"2023-05-12T11:15:46","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T15:15:46","slug":"house-passes-bill-incentivizing-states-to-claw-back-fraudulent-unemployment-insurance-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-passes-bill-incentivizing-states-to-claw-back-fraudulent-unemployment-insurance-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill passed to encourage states to recover fraudulent unemployment benefits."},"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\">20<\/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%2Fhouse-passes-bill-incentivizing-states-to-claw-back-fraudulent-unemployment-insurance-benefits%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=1929686&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--><h2>House Passes Bill to Combat Unemployment Fraud During Pandemic<\/h2>\n<p>The House of Representatives has passed a bill aimed at incentivizing states to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-passes-bill-incentivizing-states-to-claw-back-fraudulent-unemployment-insurance-benefits\/\" title=\"Bill passed to encourage states to recover fraudulent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/better-than-expected-u-s-economy-added-638000-jobs-in-october-unemployment-dropped-to-6-9\/\" title=\"Better Than Expected: U.S. Economy Added 638,000 Jobs in October, Unemployment Dropped to 6.9%\">unemployment benefits<\/a>.&#8221;>recover fraudulently paid unemployment benefits<\/a> during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act passed with a 230-200 vote, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the legislation.<\/p>\n<h3>What the Bill Entails<\/h3>\n<p>Under the legislation, states would be allowed to retain 25% of any amount recovered from overpayments of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation or Mixed Earner Unemployment Compensation that were determined to be fraudulently made. The money retained by the state must be used to modernize employment compensation systems and information technology to improve identity verification and validation of applicants. The money may also be used to cover reimbursement of administrative costs incurred by the state to identify and pursue and recover the fraudulent overpayments, including to pay for the hiring of investigators and prosecutors. Additionally, the legislation allows states to keep 5% of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/joe-bidens-choice-to-oversee-covid-unemployment-benefits-lost-600-million-in-coronavirus-relief-to-nigerian-scammers\/\" title=\"Joe Biden\u2019s Choice To Oversee COVID Unemployment Benefits Lost 0 Million In Coronavirus Relief To Nigerian Scammers\">state unemployment insurance<\/a> (UI) overpayments, provided they agree to use the money to modernize the state\u2019s UI technology infrastructure, improve the timely and accurate administration of the state\u2019s unemployment compensation law, and dedicate the funds to preventing future fraud, among other things. The legislation also extends the statute of limitations for criminal charges or civil enforcement actions related to UI fraud from 5 to 10 years.<\/p>\n<h3>Why the Bill is Necessary<\/h3>\n<p>According to a report released on Sept. 22 by the Department of Labor\u2019s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), criminals may have fraudulently obtained $45.6 billion in unemployment benefits from U.S. government programs meant to assist Americans during the pandemic. Republicans say the bill is necessary to prevent further fraud going forward. \u201cCriminal organizations and foreign fraudsters exploited our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blue-state-wastes-20-billion-on-unemployment-fraud-pays-out-810-million-to-prisoners-death-row-inmates\/\" title=\"Blue State Wastes  Billion On Unemployment Fraud, Pays Out 0 Million To Prisoners, Death Row Inmates\">unemployment benefits system<\/a> to rob hundreds of billions of dollars from American taxpayers,\u201d said Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.), the chief sponsor of the bill, in a statement after its passing.<\/p>\n<h3>Opposition to the Bill<\/h3>\n<p>The White House Office of Management and Budget has opposed the bill, arguing that it will strip state UI programs of the essential resources they need to fight fraud, combat identity theft, and recover overpayments, and would \u201cset back the goals of strengthening program integrity and combating systemic fraud.\u201d They further argue that the legislation would unfairly punish workers whose overpayments were the fault of a state agency. It is unclear how states would be stripped of essential resources, given that the bill allows them to use the 25% in recovered overpayments to combat future fraud.<\/p>\n<p>Despite opposition, the bill has passed and is expected to have a significant impact on preventing unemployment fraud during the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The House voted on May 11 to pass legislation aimed at\u00a0incentivizing states to claw back fraudulently paid unemployment benefits made during the\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic. The bill, H. R. 1163, known as the \u201cProtecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act\u201d\u00a0passed in a\u00a0230\u2013200 vote, with 10 Democrats joining Republicans in voting for the legislation. Under the legislation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":1929687,"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":[543],"tags":[4848,5736,16169,7992,8423,4846],"class_list":["post-1929686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-benefits","tag-encourage","tag-fraudulent","tag-passed","tag-recover","tag-unemployment"],"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\/1929686","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\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1929686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1929687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1929686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1929686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1929686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}