Posted on 07/28/2023 12:33:54 AM PDT by Olog-hai
The state of Illinois improperly paid out billions of unemployment tax dollars during the COVID-19 pandemic, with tens of millions going to people who were either dead or in prison, according to a newly released audit.
The Illinois auditor general on Wednesday published a report that showed how the state agency that distributes unemployment benefits issued “overpayments” to the tune of $5.2 billion in fraudulent or excessive claims from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2022. The report is the fullest accounting yet of the large-scale fraud and overpayments that occurred in Illinois during the pandemic.
Of the $5.2 billion, the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) overpaid by about $2 billion for regular unemployment insurance and by $3.2 billion for federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) put in place following the outbreak of COVID.
Overall, $2.8 billion has been classified as identity theft — money not considered recoverable since it can’t be collected from the identity theft victim. According to the audit, only about a tenth of the total $5.2 billion has been recovered.
Unemployment surged in Illinois, as it did in the rest of the country, at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 after Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Businesses were forced to cut back their operations, if not shut down, leaving many Illinois residents out of work and creating an unprecedented level of demand for unemployment insurance. …
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Before or after they died of COVID or more likely experimental vaccines.
I bet a lot the money was ultimately kicked back to democrats.
Not just Illinois. Add Florida to the list. Newly-arrived Puerto Ricans without a word of English with their cell phones set to “translate” with thousands of dollars of cash and credit cards in their pockets, driving brand new F-150’s and 250’s into the lot then walking through Home Depot buying up every power tool kit they could fit into the damned shopping cart, shipping them all back “home” to the Island. Florida has had tons of trouble with the agency charged with distributing state unemployment benefits for years before the pandemic ever hit.
... and all the checks were cashed.
Covid was a good time to be dead…. You could get stimulus and get to vote.
Including the Chicago school union and thier leeches, remember the videos of them dancing at home, vacationing during covid and not wanting to return to teach (if thats what they call it) why would they when thier having a great time getting paid at home
Can’t keep them on the voter rolls if payment stops
They deserve to be paid, after all they vote in Illinois elections.
It should be pointed out that only Chicago and E. St. Louis are “deep blue.” Illinois is a huge state that is ovewhelmingly deep red, yet chicago controls everything. Most likely, they are stuffing the ballot boxes and cheating big time in chicago to win all the state wide offices. Whos’ going to go into the south end of chicago to “watch” the poll workers and make sure it’s all on the up and up?
Lots of truth in what you wrote.
Hey, I’m sure Congre$$ is working on ways to prevent this from ever happening again ... right after their Summer break they need to take because thy have worked so hard up til now.
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