{"id":2029667,"date":"2023-09-12T17:43:02","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/government-gave-over-100-billion-of-taxpayer-money-to-welfare-fraudsters-during-pandemic-watchdog-finds\/"},"modified":"2023-09-12T17:44:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T21:44:12","slug":"government-gave-over-100-billion-of-taxpayer-money-to-welfare-fraudsters-during-pandemic-watchdog-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/government-gave-over-100-billion-of-taxpayer-money-to-welfare-fraudsters-during-pandemic-watchdog-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchdog discovers government gave $100B+ taxpayer money to welfare fraudsters during pandemic."},"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%2Fgovernment-gave-over-100-billion-of-taxpayer-money-to-welfare-fraudsters-during-pandemic-watchdog-finds%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=2029667&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--><div>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<p>      \u200b    Getty Images<br \/>\n    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h2>The Shocking Scale of Unemployment Insurance Fraud During the Pandemic<\/h2>\n<p>The government gave away over $100 billion in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-taps-ca-labor-official-for-role-amidst-states-multi-billion-dollar-unemployment-fraud-scandal\/\" title=\"Biden Taps CA Labor Official For Role Amidst State\u2019s Multi-Billion Dollar Unemployment Fraud Scandal\">unemployment insurance benefits<\/a> to fraudsters during the COVID-19 pandemic,\u2063 according to a report released Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Between $100 billion and \u2062$135 billion worth of federal unemployment \u200binsurance benefits were collected\u2064 by \u200cfraudsters during the pandemic, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/gao-23-106696\">report<\/a> from\u2064 the Government\u200d Accountability Office, which audits government agencies.<\/p>\n<p>The total amount of fraud accounts for \u2064between 11 percent and 15 \u2062percent of the total amount \u200dof unemployment insurance benefits doled out between April 2020 and May 2023.<\/p>\n<h3>High Risk for \u2064Fraud<\/h3>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/government-gave-over-100-billion-of-taxpayer-money-to-welfare-fraudsters-during-pandemic-watchdog-finds\/\" title=\"Watchdog discovers government gave 0B+ taxpayer money to welfare fraudsters during pandemic.\">office\u200d considers unemployment \u200binsurance benefits<\/a> to be of high risk for fraud, and it has issued 26\u200d recommendations since 2018 to the\u200b Department of Labor, which oversees \u2064the program. The department has incorporated 10 of them.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Labor, under acting secretary Julie Su, disputed the office&#8217;s methodology, but the office stood by its conclusions, highlighting the high confidence it had in the\u2062 findings.<\/p>\n<p>While \u2063Su was the head of California&#8217;s Labor and Workforce Development Agency, \u200ca position\u2063 she held until July 2021, the state <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/julie-su-tax\/\">paid out<\/a> \u2062$31 billion in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aoc-blasts-republicans-for-investigating-covid-fraud\/\" title=\"AOC Blasts Republicans for Investigating COVID Fraud\">fraudulent unemployment insurance claims<\/a> during \u2063the pandemic. To recoup the funds for\u2063 the now-insolvent unemployment fund, the state has levied a payroll tax\u2014which Republicans have called the &#8220;Su Tax&#8221;\u2014that could exceed $400 per worker each year.<\/p>\n<h3>Not the Only\u2063 Program Affected<\/h3>\n<p>Unemployment \u200binsurance is not the only program responsible for heavy amounts of\u2062 pandemic fraud. The Small Business\u2064 Administration&#8217;s inspector general \u2062found in June that fraudsters stole approximately <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/fraudsters-stole-more-than-200-billion-from-two-covid-relief-programs-watchdog-estimates\/\">$200\u2064 billion<\/a> from \u200bthe Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program and the \u200bPaycheck Protection Program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to a report by the Government Accountability Office, fraudsters received $100-135 billion in unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government unknowingly distributed this staggering amount to fraudulent individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2112,"featured_media":2029668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2029667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"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\/2029667","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\/2112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2029668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}