Illinois taxpayers still don’t know how much fraud there’s been in unemployment payments from the pandemic that started nearly two and a half years ago. Unemployment spiked at the beginning of the pandemic because of government actions limiting economic activity. In Illinois, there were backlogs and countless reports of people not applying for unemployment but still receiving benefits. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported this week improper payments nationwide jumped from an estimated $8 billion in 2020 to an estimated $78.1 in 2021. Messages to the Illinois Department of Employment Security about how much of that was from Illinois were not returned. Lawmakers on committees that oversee the state agency didn’t return messages. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said now, nearly 27 months after the start of the pandemic, the lack of a dollar figure of fraud is unacceptable.
The GAO said states faced challenges in reporting reliable improper payments and thus, “the full extent of improper payments for the UI system is not presently known.”
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