Washington state officials admitted losing "Hundreds of millions of dollars" to an international fraud scheme, originating out of Nigeria, that robbed the state's unemployment insurance system and could mean even longer delays for thousands of jobless workers still waiting for legitimate benefits.
Thursday's disclosure helped explain the unusual surge in the number of new jobless claims filed last week in Washington, which as we showed this morning was the state with the highest weekly increase in claims.
On Wednesday, the state's monthly employment report for April showed Washington with a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 15.4%, up from 5.1% in March.
For the week ending May 16, the ESD received 138,733 initial claims for unemployment insurance, a 26.8% increase over the prior week and one of the biggest weekly surges since the coronavirus crisis began.
The surge in claims made Washington the state with the highest percentage of its civilian labor force filing unemployment claims - at 30.8%, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank.
The disclosure came as the state was already struggling to process an unprecedented wave of legitimate jobless claims amid one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history.
That same day, the Secret Service issued an alert describing Washington as the top target so far of a Nigerian fraud ring "Exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to commit large-scale fraud against state unemployment insurance programs."
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/washington-state-loses-hundreds-millions-nigerian-unemployment-claims-fraud-scheme
Thursday's disclosure helped explain the unusual surge in the number of new jobless claims filed last week in Washington, which as we showed this morning was the state with the highest weekly increase in claims.
On Wednesday, the state's monthly employment report for April showed Washington with a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 15.4%, up from 5.1% in March.
For the week ending May 16, the ESD received 138,733 initial claims for unemployment insurance, a 26.8% increase over the prior week and one of the biggest weekly surges since the coronavirus crisis began.
The surge in claims made Washington the state with the highest percentage of its civilian labor force filing unemployment claims - at 30.8%, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank.
The disclosure came as the state was already struggling to process an unprecedented wave of legitimate jobless claims amid one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history.
That same day, the Secret Service issued an alert describing Washington as the top target so far of a Nigerian fraud ring "Exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to commit large-scale fraud against state unemployment insurance programs."
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/washington-state-loses-hundreds-millions-nigerian-unemployment-claims-fraud-scheme
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