The Labor Department believes nearly $1 out of every $5 it doles out for unemployment benefits is fraudulent, erroneous, or unjustified
- This is so bad it violated three of the six tenets of the Payment Integrity Information Act, a federal law passed in 2019 to rein in errant federal spending and ensure agencies stay below 10% in bad payments.
Bottom Line
- Republicans see a potential political issue in the fall election to use against Democrats in Congress who pushed the expansion of unemployment benefits as well as against the Biden administration that oversaw such a bad record of performance
- In a response to the IG report, the Labor Department said it looks forward to one day becoming compliant with the payments integrity law and in the meantime "will continue to work with states to implement payment integrity efforts, especially to combat fraud while ensuring American workers in need receive benefits to which they are entitled."
Fed report finds 75% of $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program didn't reach employees
The PPP was a very large and timely fiscal-policy intervention, saving about 3 million jobs at its peak in the second quarter of 2020 and distributing $800 billion well within two years of the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, but it was poorly targeted, as almost three-quarters of its benefits went to unintended recipients
Bottom Line
- PPP was created as a temporary program under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act
- The low-interest loans could be made without collateral for up to $10 million to businesses with fewer than 500 employees
- Loans were forgiven if businesses maintained employment and wages at pre-pandemic levels for two to six months following acceptance of the funds
- 90% of the nearly $800 billion in PPP loans were forgiven by last month
No comments:
Post a Comment