Pull the thread: Inquiry into unemployment fraud can get needed answers

Last November, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released a report suggesting up to $11 billion from the state’s pandemic-related expanded unemployment insurance program was lost to fraud. A month later, Labor Department Commissioner Roberta Reardon wrote in an op-ed that the number was no more than $4 billion. So which is it?

Numbers all get a little nondescript at the big end, which is why it’s worth emphasizing just how enormous of a gulf exists between $4 billion and $11 billion. The $7 billion gap is enough to cover the MTA’s entire operating expenses for something like four months, or replace hundreds of aging boilers in NYCHA housing. Perhaps new House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, who last week sent a letter to Reardon as well as officials in California and Pennsylvania as part of an inquiry into UI fraud, can get to the bottom of it, though he should take care to not turn it into a political sideshow.

However, we should be aware that fraud can never be zero or anything close to it. Regardless of the nature of any government program, there will always be people that figure out ways to game it and cheat it.

That doesn’t mean the program isn’t worthwhile or that standards should be made so stringent as to be insurmountable, which is especially the case for an emergency UI expansion that was by necessity almost immediate, with an emphasis of getting money out the door fast. This inquiry should mainly be used as a roadmap to avoid specific pitfalls that may arise in a future emergency where the unemployment system needs to quickly ramp up under strain.

As for enforcement, the authorities must go after the most egregious violators — crooks who got big payouts by using false identities, making claims under different names, or totally fabricating work information. They should not go after the many people who may have slightly confused their work dates or otherwise didn’t exactly cross their t’s and dot their i’s during a time of global catastrophe.

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