> The US Department of Labor Inspector General Office in late March estimated that at least $89 billion of the estimated $896 billion in federal unemployment program funds could be paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud. This is based on a historic improper payment rate of at least 10%.
This is lazy BS from the other side; they know for a fact that the rate of fraud is going to be higher than it was pre-COVID. We know how much has been paid out and the only question is what the fraud rate is.
I agree that you have to be skeptical given that id.me is selling a product, and to be honest, I only put two-and-two together after making my comment and revisiting the axios article since I first came across it. That being said, given how many states are using id.me, they have unique visibility into the problem and I don't think it's fair to write them off as entirely untrustworthy.
tl;dr: The number is probably between $100B and $400B. It's hundreds of billions of dollars either way.
Fraud is a subset of that 10%, it could 10% of the total improper payment rate aka 1% of the total.
Assuming it’s higher with covid seems without justification is just an assumption. If anything it might be lower if a higher percentage of people applied for unemployment without quickly finding a new job.
That's fair. But the general consensus among media and government agencies has been that the rate of fraud (and not just the overall amount of fraud) is higher. ie: in Maryland
> According to the Maryland Department of Labor, as of July 13, 1,443,211 or 92.31 percent of all out-of-state and in-state claims were confirmed as fraudulent.
Again that 92% could be true, but those are clams not money actually being handed out. That said, if under 8% of clams where legitimate then paying out 50% incorrectly might actually be accurate.
> This is lazy BS from the other side; they know for a fact that the rate of fraud is going to be higher than it was pre-COVID.
As a percentage of total claims? I don't think they know that. What's the reasoning? Obviously, both numerator and denominator would go up, but beyond that...
> The US Department of Labor Inspector General Office in late March estimated that at least $89 billion of the estimated $896 billion in federal unemployment program funds could be paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud. This is based on a historic improper payment rate of at least 10%.
This is lazy BS from the other side; they know for a fact that the rate of fraud is going to be higher than it was pre-COVID. We know how much has been paid out and the only question is what the fraud rate is.
I agree that you have to be skeptical given that id.me is selling a product, and to be honest, I only put two-and-two together after making my comment and revisiting the axios article since I first came across it. That being said, given how many states are using id.me, they have unique visibility into the problem and I don't think it's fair to write them off as entirely untrustworthy.
tl;dr: The number is probably between $100B and $400B. It's hundreds of billions of dollars either way.