In an effort to speed up unemployment benefits during the Epidemic, California suspended some eligibility requirements beginning last March, resulting in millions of fraudulent claims, a new audit report says.
Due to the influx of unemployment claims at the height of the epidemic, California officials decided to suspend some of the Time-consuming eligibility checks and stop bimonthly reconfirmations for people who had already begun receiving unemployment benefits. The result of this measure is that some 4.1 million people must return all or part of the unemployment benefits they have received, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
The report notes that of the total population receiving unemployment benefits, 2.7 million are ineligible and 1.7 million are likely to be overpaid. It is unclear if there is any overlap between the two groups.
The report, released by California Comptroller Elaine Howle on the 26th, found that the Employment Development Department (EDD) has “no clear plan” to address the backlog of unemployment claims, representing an unprecedented workload for them that could have a serious impact on claimants.
According to the report, the backlog consists of at least 12.7 million eligibility reviews, affecting approximately 2.4 million people. Based on the average 30 minutes it takes EDD to process each case, it would take them more than 3 million hours, or 342 years, to process all the cases.
Hall said some people may have received unemployment benefits by mistake because they did not understand the eligibility rules, some were victims of negligent review by EDD staff, and others were intentionally fraudulent.
Typically, Californians have two years to return overclaimed unemployment benefits, but exemptions are available in certain cases, including those that do not involve a fraudulent component. However, the audit report said it is uncertain how many people qualify for the exemption because EDD has not yet reviewed all cases.
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