WASHINGTON–There was at least $4.3-billion in fraudulent unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the actual amount could be as much as 10 times more, according to a new government report.
And that doesn’t include the billions in suspected PPP loan fraud.
The new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed federal and state workforce agency findings, inspector general reports and Labor Department estimates for the period from March 2020, when the pandemic began, to March 2022.
The GAO said unemployment Insurance fraud topped at least $4.3 billion, according to determinations made by state workforce agencies, including that in Michigan, where 54 people had been charged with fraud by state or federal authorities as of December 2021.
No less than $45 billion in unemployment insurance payments “had some indication of potential fraud,” according to the report, which said that conclusion is based on data analytics, reports to fraud hotlines and investigations. Without further agency review, however, the GAO said that figure could be off, as “some of the flagged transactions may not be fraudulent and not all fraudulent transactions may be flagged,” according to USA Today.
Could Be More Than $60 Billion
“Extrapolating the lower range for the estimated rate of fraud in regular unemployment payments during the period to the three temporary unemployment programs created in response to the pandemic, during that period, estimated total fraud for all programs would be more than $60 billion,” the report said.
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