Unemployment Insurance Waste and Fraud

Ryan BourneUnemployment Insurance has been the hot economic policy debate topic for a while. This week ’s jobs figures again showedlabor supply failing to keep up with a soaring demand for workers as the economy reopens, leading tosharply rising wages in pandemic ‐​hit sectors and thehighest unfilled opening rate among small businesses ever. As I ’ve written before, there is good indicative evidence that the $300 per week UI supplement has been slowing rehiring rates by disincentivizing returns to work. Hence why 25 states so far have opted out of the program from June onwards.Lesser commented on though is how these emergency pandemic ‐​related unemployment benefits may be open to fraud and abuse. Yeta damning new audit from the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General this week found that states struggled to implement the required and recommended payment control activities in delivering the CARES Act program last year. This is technical language to say the programs appear to have been open to vast amounts of unnecessary spending.The audit analyzes how the three pandemic ‐​related programs from the CARES Act were implemented through 2020. These programs extended UI benefits to those not traditionally eligible, such as self‐​employed workers and contractors, provided an additional 13 weeks of unemployment compensation for those who had exhausted traditional b enefits, and provided a supplement payment of $600 per week. As the pand...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs