Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

Murderers & other prisoners in California have stolen $31 billion in unemployment benefits, making it biggest fraud scheme in history

Madoff = $18B

Cal. Labor Sec @JulieSuCA = @JoeBiden ‘s Dep. Labor Sec nominee 😬

@GavinNewsom will you claw this back?

abc7news.com/california-edd…

- 27% (!) of all claims appear to have been fraudulent

- California officials have been dribbling this out since December with initial estimates appearing to be of just $2 billion in December

abc30.com/california-edd…

Nigerians and others stole $36 billion last summer including $9B from Washington state and $2 billion from California so this has been going on for a long time

usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…

“2 years ago auditor advised Legislature that EDD was exposing people to ID theft by placing Social Security numbers on mail. The volume of mail exploded but EDD ignored the warning and ‘continued to place Californians at risk of identity theft’”

smh

calmatters.org/commentary/202…

“Many phony claims were preventable had Calif taken precautions of other states including: software to identify suspect applications, keeping Soc Sec numbers off mail, checking benefit claims against personal data of prisoners — routine in 35 states”

latimes.com/california/sto…

Where was @GavinNewsom ?

“Months of dithering have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach), chairwoman of the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review.”

Role of governor is to knock heads

This is bonkers

“The EDD also has not acted swiftly enough on warnings from March 2019 (!) that it was exposing claimants’ Social Sec numbers to fraud by sending them in the mail, according to the state auditor, who said Washington and Texas are among states that do not include”

“Ten people, including convicted murderers, have been charged in separate schemes that defrauded California’s employment agency out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, prosecutors announced Monday.”

ktla.com/news/local-new…

The eye-watering amount of money involved in this fraud is matched by layers upon layers of bureaucratic incompetence

Social Security numbers in the mail?

No checking against prisoner data?

No controls?

Problems identified before pandemic?

No skull-crushing by @GavinNewsom

“Feinstein has been a U.S. senator from for three decades. But apparently no one at the California Employment Development Department noticed when a scammer using her name and Social Security number — filed for unemployment benefits, collecting $21,000.”

sfchronicle.com/business/artic…