What happened
When Covid shut down the economy, Congress expanded unemployment benefits fast and states rushed to pay claims. Identity thieves filed in state after state using stolen personal information.
In September 2023 GAO estimated that $100 billion to $135 billion of pandemic unemployment money went to fraud.
Why nobody caught it
- States were under pressure to pay quickly, and new federal programs let people certify their own eligibility.
- At the time of the estimate, states had identified only $5.3 billion in fraud and recovered $1.2 billion.
How sure are we?
Estimated
An auditor, inspector general or the agency itself estimated the fraud. It's a measured range, not a list of names.
This is GAO's statistical estimate. The gap between what was estimated and what was caught is the point: most of it was never traced.
Sources
- GAO-23-106696: estimated amount of unemployment insurance fraud during the pandemicU.S. Government Accountability Office · Sep 12, 2023
Spot an error? Send the source and we'll fix it.