MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Millions of dollars meant to help those struggling to find work during the pandemic went to criminals instead. Federal stimulus checks and weekly jobless benefits proved to be too tempting for a number of thieves trying to get checks with stolen identities.
Tara Hutchison with the Alabama Department of Labor says alongside law enforcement, the department is investigating 340,000 potentially fraudulent pandemic-related unemployment assistance claims.
“Fraud is always going to occur. There’s always been fraud in the unemployment compensation system and the programs, but never, never to this extent,” Hutchison said.
ADOL did estimate, however, that 43% or nearly half of those 340,000 fraudulent claims were flagged by the department as fraud and not a single dollar was sent out. In other words, somewhere around 146,000 of the claims were blocked by ADOL.
“It was inevitable. It was almost impossible to prevent all of that fraud from happening, but we were successful at stopping almost half of that fraud from ever occurring,” Hutchison said.
ADOL was faced with the same problem as every other state in the country during the pandemic - a tsunami of unemployment claims.
“We’ve never paid out as much money as we paid out during the pandemic. Never had as many claims filed,” Hutchison said.
Thousands of Alabamians suddenly jobless turned to new federally funded pandemic related unemployment programs approved under the CARES ACT.
“That was the additional...
Why it Matters Federal research agencies face mounting pressure to prevent fraud in grant-making, and Congress is moving to hold them accountable. A House subcommittee grant fraud hearing schedule...