May 6, 2025
What DOGE Flagged as Unemployment Fraud Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg—Most of Which Will Never Be Recovered
The Department of Government Efficiency recently spotlighted unemployment benefits paid to tens of thousands of individuals whose reported birthdates indicated they were either children or dead. One claimant’s birthdate even suggested he or she hadn’t been born yet. As Elon Musk said, “Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” The $382 million DOGE identified that taxpayers lost on the associated improper payments is real money. But it’s also just…
December 3, 2024
Avoiding an Unemployment Loan Bailout
Taxpayers in most states may have dodged a billion-dollar bullet on election day. That is, if the outcome had been different, liberal lawmakers would have been uniquely positioned to bail out California and New York unemployment benefit debts, and in the process shift large costs onto taxpayers in other states. All states levy payroll taxes…
November 20, 2023
The Next Time States Are “Swimming in Money” Make Them Repay Their Federal Loans
The pandemic was full of firsts, including the first time states received hundreds of billions of federal dollars they could use to shore up their depleted state unemployment insurance (UI) programs. The March 2020 CARES Act provided $150 billion in a flexible “Coronavirus Relief Fund,” whose potential uses included covering states’ “unemployment insurance costs.” Then the March 2021 American…