According to an audit conducted by state finance official Tom DiNapoli, eleven billion dollars were lost in 2020 due to gross fraud and overpayments.
The US state of New York lost at least $11 billion to fraud in 2020 as jobless claims surged at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, aided by unemployment rules that eased eligibility and a system of State unemployment already crumbling, the New York Post reported Tuesday, quoting state finance chief Tom DiNapoli.
According to an audit conducted by DiNapoli, eleven billion dollars were lost in 2020 due to gross fraud and overpayments. Additionally, he warned that despite staggering fraud in the first year of the pandemic and lockdowns, billions of dollars more in shortages are likely to be uncovered. “There was a good intention to get that much money, but the problem is that it made the system even more vulnerable to fraud, especially when it comes to identity theft,” said the New York State Chief Financial Officer.
It’s still unclear how much unemployment fraud and waste has cost the state after the first year of the pandemic, even when the Labor Department hasn’t provided key data showing it actually prevented all the fraud it has done, he told Dinapoli. , according to the New York Post. “Typically we find that in many agencies, responsiveness and, ultimately, transparency are not where they should be,” DiNapoli complained, referring to the months of delays in getting responses from the Department of Labor during the audit buildup.
Sami Nemli with AFP / ECO inspirations
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