Posted on 01/31/2013 11:32:07 AM PST by massmike
Bay State taxpayers are doling out a staggering $25 million a year to welfare recipients who may not even be eligible to collect, according to a blistering new report from one of the state’s top fraud fighters.
The report, focused on families with at least one child, estimated that almost 10 percent of the 51,311 families on welfare are able to collect benefits from the Department of Transitional Assistance without having to provide the right documentation.
The inspector general’s eye-opening study found the welfare department is awarding benefits to recipients who:
• work outside jobs — a welfare violation that wastes $4.4 million in taxpayer dough. In one case, DTA never bothered investigating a tip that one woman was running a day care center out of her home.
• hold more than the $2,500 maximum assets — a lapse in DTA oversight that costs taxpayers $2.2 million. One welfare recipient was even the landlord of a housing unit, collecting $1,000 a month rent.
• fail to provide adequate proof of residency — another DTA snafu costing the state $4.4 million. In one staggering example, a recipient listing his address simply as a P.O. box was allowed to collect. Another was able to claim their child who went to school in Puerto Rico.
• fail to prove their child was even related to them — a blunder costing $7.4 million.
• never proved their citizenship or immigration status — another hit costing $5.2 million.
• submitted false or misleading information about a spouse they claimed to be absent — $2.9 million. In some cases, women signed affidavits claiming the father was never around, only to have a subsequent child with the same man.
The total comes to $26.5 million, but the audit wrote off
$1.5 million because of overlapping categories.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Well, he just dropped in for a few minutes..............to say hello........
"But it's for the children!"
And, if that doesn't work:
"At least we liberals are trying!"
And..... if that fails, a straw man argument:
"At least we're not paying $400 for a toilet seat!"
Probably add a zero to the end of that 25M.
CA spends 34B on welfare making 25M a teeny tiny fraction. So I am not believing this. Welfare fraud is a lot hight that this.
ONLY $25 million?
I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job...
I believe it. I believe this is just fraud in MA. Libs claim that there is no fraud worth looking for, yet every time someone manages to look they find fraud makes up a significant fraction of the payout.
25M IS NOT a significant amount of 35B. Something is wrong. No program has a 1/10 of 1 percent fraud rate. IT SHOULD BE a lot higher. The figures are a lie. Again CA spends 35B A YEAR on welfare. A ten percent fraud rate would be 3.5B. My guess 10 percent is low....
Those numbers are trivial and grossly understate the real situation.
Here in Indiana, a tv station got a digital file of where TANF cards were swiped to get cash money.
Vegas, Hawaii, Disney (Fl and Ca), Puerto Rico, Nevada brothels, etc, etc.
Welfare fraud is as widespread as members of Congress making “market crushing” returns from inside trading.
This was a study of one program in MA, thus the amount CA spends on welfare is the wrong amount to be comparing it to. They found a 10% fraud rate in this one program. I would be unsurprised to find that people defrauding this are also defrauding other welfare programs.
1. This is Massachusetts, not California and their total welfare spending is far less than $34 billion that California spends.
2. No matter how "teeny tiny" the fraction is, $25 million is being wasted/defrauded from the taxpayers. Any reduction in that amount is a positive step.
I guess it's the "new normal" . . .
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