In the year after the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S., Congress passed $6 trillion in spending to address it. Of that amount, it apportioned hundreds of billions of dollars to expand unemployment benefits. As a result of the emergency situation, the benefits were particularly generous, offering some laid-off workers as much as triple the amount normally paid by unemployment insurance (U.I.).
A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) made public this week found "substantial levels of fraud" in the program. More notably, it indicated that the government lacks a real strategy for dealing with the problem.
