House releases report highlighting reported billions in pandemic-relief fraud, focus on unemployment

The House Oversight Committee Tuesday released a report on pandemic unemployment relief programs and concluded the government spent wildly on relief programs that were plagued by waste, fraud, and abuse resulting in billions in losses and stolen funds. 

“Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration spent trillions of dollars under the guise of pandemic relief and the Oversight Committee’s very first hearing this Congress exposed how this unchecked spending left taxpayer funds, including UI programs, vulnerable to significant waste, fraud, and abuse,” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement.

“While Democrats turned a blind eye to this waste of taxpayer dollars, Republicans were committed to identifying how these taxpayer funds fell prey to fraudsters and criminal organizations. Today’s report includes a list of comprehensive recommendations to ensure future taxpayer-funded UI programs don’t suffer a similar fate,” he continued. 

You can read the report below: 

The Republican-led investigation found that the Government Accountability Office estimated roughly 11 to 15 percent of all benefits paid out during the pandemic were fraudulent, resulting in between $100 and $135 billion in losses. In a separate estimate, the Department of Labor Inspector General found nearly $200 billion total benefits could have been improperly paid out, according to a press release.

The committee also concluded that the design of pandemic relief programs left them vulnerable to waste and fraud. For example, during the first nine months of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, individuals did not have to provide evidence of income or prior work. That program alone had an improper payment rate of 35.9 percent, according to the report. 

“Today’s report shows how the Democrats’ spending spree led to historic fraud and commonsense guardrails would have helped prevent the theft of billions of dollars in UI programs,” said Government Operations and the Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Tx. “This Committee is committed to preventing waste, fraud, and abuse and will continue to provide solutions to improve improper payment reporting and ensure taxpayer funds are properly managed in the future.” 

The committee recommends that the federal government implement proof of work requirements for any future unemployment insurance benefits, streamline its data collection to hold state’s accountable for program benefit distribution, and improve calculation of improper payments.