4 ms·

$100M in Jobless Claims Went to Inmates

36 points by wglb 6y ago

groby_b 6y ago
Wherein, to save $100M, we pay much more to a private company[1], and in the process sidestep the question of a federal ID database by instead selling it out to a private vendor. I can't wait to hear when they get hacked, and they have to give out free ID monitoring for a year to make up for it. [1] VA alone pays $12M/year: https://www.fedhealthit.com/2019/05/va-awards-62m-task-for-id-me-annual-licenses-and-maintenance/ https://www.fedhealthit.com/2019/05/va-awards-62m-task-for-i...
williesleg 6y ago
They need it. Let's get bezos and cook to give their money to inmates too. Rough life.
jrochkind1 6y ago
How long until id.me gets hacked and all those scanned licenses get released...
bpodgursky 6y ago
Still a small fraction of the at least $11B in fraud CA alone paid out https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535796-california-officials-confirm-over-11-billion-in-unemployment-fraud-during https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535796-california-official...
jeffbee 6y ago
Is that a lot? People who want to whine about these types of errors need to show that making it more accurate is worth the trouble. It's been long-known that compliance with federal income taxes is only about 88%, dollar-wise, but there isn't a flood of intentionally misleading blogging about that, even though the amount at stake is greater.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
As the article immediately states, that $100 million is a tiny amount of unemployment fraud, and money going to inmates is not a vital part of the article. Why is it the headline? $100 millim going to inmates is more shocking than California had $11 billion in unemployment fraud last year?
- asciident 6y ago
  And California's 11 billion is probably just a fraction of all the unemployment fraud across all the states as this has been a rampant problem. Then add on to that the small business loan fraud, and we're easily at 100+ billion levels across the country. These numbers will be more clear once the tax return filings and small business loan audits start happening. The various stimulus packages have led to fraud at the scale never been seen before, and the cost of amounts more than the entire National Science Foundation budget (8.5 billion) and National Institutes of Health budget (42.5 billion).
- Someone1234 6y ago
  Almost feels like a bait-and-switch. The article is actually interesting vis-à-vis ID.me stuff. It is unclear to me why they decided to lead/title with the jail thing, when it isn't explored, in the body of the article. Better article title: "States are now turning to ID.me to prevent jobless fraud claims."
csours 6y ago
Is this an ad? It reads like an ad. I imagine that imprisonment and joblessness is highly correlated. At what point in time is this illegal? A lot of people in jail are not convicted, and a lot more are not convicted of felonies.
- ear7h 6y ago
  Paul Graham's Submarine [1] essay seems relevant. There's a few other articles about ID.me that have come out today according to a quick google search. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- jcheng 6y ago
  According to https://edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/Eligibility.htm https://edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/Eligibility.htm in order to qualify for unemployment benefits in California, you must be "physically able to work, available for work, and ready and willing to accept work immediately"--obviously that can't be the case if you're incarcerated. In the recent cycle of articles about CA unemployment fraud, it's been widely reported that inmates involved (not necessarily perpetrating, some just had their names used) in this fraud were from all around the country.
wyxuan 6y ago
ID.Me is a step in the right direction but I think articles like these underscore the need for a federal digital ID (maybe a card like they have in Germany and other countries) where I can authenticate who I am quickly and securely. Obviously there is the potential for abuse (which should be mitigated), but current system is just such a patchwork.
tehwebguy 6y ago
Does anyone actually believe this? It's like, I don't know, a thousand times more likely that someone not in prison was scamming the system and one of the easiest ways to identify that some claims were fraudulent after the fact is to check them against databases of very ineligible people that might not have been checked in the approval filter. "Currently imprisoned people" sounds like one of the most likely lists, since long dead people are probably somewhat more likely to be filtered out on the first try. "People currently in prison" is probably also a fairly easy list to hit since there are public records indicating who has been sentenced and the people in question are way, way less likely to be tipped off that a fraudulent claim has been made in their name since they are largely cut off from the world. Fraud happened, and surely some people in prison were able to hear about the increased UI benefits and apply, but I have a very hard time believing the headline.
- asciident 6y ago
  This is very believable, because information in prison spreads instantly and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. One inmate figures out a way to make money, and sells this information for other favors, and soon it becomes "viral".
heterodoxxed 6y ago
I'm immediately suspicious of any article that doesn't seem to understand the difference between jail and prison and uses the two interchangeably.
bastard_op 6y ago
The prison system is a worthless (unless corporate) racket (prisoners and family), double billing both external and internal sources, using 1998 activeX websites in 2013 to even try to deal or communicate that no one could even use (particularly from linux), and general malfeasance that I can't believe I witnessed with a friend going down for a DUI into that. Did he do wrong? Yes. Is this right? NO! Not to any self-respecting IT person, which he was. The whole thing is government and corporate nepotism. The drama to even send him some books to read was absurd. I had to tell him, I couldn't figure out how to work with communicating with him without installing windows xp. It was typical silly government giving grants to their cousins just because they could, hiring some scumbags developers, and with prisoners, why bother? I did some research on who ran the communications systems, and the most crap-bag company you can imagine did, at least for Arizona. I presume now this is common. That whole system needs burned down from the bottom up, including the lobbyists in the pyre.
jojobas 6y ago
Fraud calls seem to be the favorite pastime for Russian inmates. They typically target individuals though. They're not supposed to have cellphones but they bribe their way to them, purchase some personal details and typically pose as bank security officers.
naebother 6y ago
ID.me is dogshit. Just another technocratic hurdle to dissuade people from getting what they're owed. Looking forward to the inevitable hack.
burnthrow 6y ago
If you're prevented from working a real job, you should receive jobless benefits.

36 points by wglb 6y ago

Wherein, to save $100M, we pay much more to a private company[1], and in the process sidestep the question of a federal ID database by instead selling it out to a private vendor. I can't wait to hear when they get hacked, and they have to give out free ID monitoring for a year to make up for it. [1] VA alone pays $12M/year: https://www.fedhealthit.com/2019/05/va-awards-62m-task-for-id-me-annual-licenses-and-maintenance/ https://www.fedhealthit.com/2019/05/va-awards-62m-task-for-i...

williesleg 6y ago

They need it. Let's get bezos and cook to give their money to inmates too. Rough life.

jrochkind1 6y ago

How long until id.me gets hacked and all those scanned licenses get released...

bpodgursky 6y ago

Still a small fraction of the at least $11B in fraud CA alone paid out https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535796-california-officials-confirm-over-11-billion-in-unemployment-fraud-during https://thehill.com/homenews/news/535796-california-official...

jeffbee 6y ago

Is that a lot? People who want to whine about these types of errors need to show that making it more accurate is worth the trouble. It's been long-known that compliance with federal income taxes is only about 88%, dollar-wise, but there isn't a flood of intentionally misleading blogging about that, even though the amount at stake is greater.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

As the article immediately states, that $100 million is a tiny amount of unemployment fraud, and money going to inmates is not a vital part of the article. Why is it the headline? $100 millim going to inmates is more shocking than California had $11 billion in unemployment fraud last year?

asciident 6y ago
And California's 11 billion is probably just a fraction of all the unemployment fraud across all the states as this has been a rampant problem. Then add on to that the small business loan fraud, and we're easily at 100+ billion levels across the country. These numbers will be more clear once the tax return filings and small business loan audits start happening. The various stimulus packages have led to fraud at the scale never been seen before, and the cost of amounts more than the entire National Science Foundation budget (8.5 billion) and National Institutes of Health budget (42.5 billion).
Someone1234 6y ago
Almost feels like a bait-and-switch. The article is actually interesting vis-à-vis ID.me stuff. It is unclear to me why they decided to lead/title with the jail thing, when it isn't explored, in the body of the article. Better article title: "States are now turning to ID.me to prevent jobless fraud claims."

csours 6y ago

Is this an ad? It reads like an ad. I imagine that imprisonment and joblessness is highly correlated. At what point in time is this illegal? A lot of people in jail are not convicted, and a lot more are not convicted of felonies.

ear7h 6y ago
Paul Graham's Submarine [1] essay seems relevant. There's a few other articles about ID.me that have come out today according to a quick google search. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
jcheng 6y ago
According to https://edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/Eligibility.htm https://edd.ca.gov/Unemployment/Eligibility.htm in order to qualify for unemployment benefits in California, you must be "physically able to work, available for work, and ready and willing to accept work immediately"--obviously that can't be the case if you're incarcerated. In the recent cycle of articles about CA unemployment fraud, it's been widely reported that inmates involved (not necessarily perpetrating, some just had their names used) in this fraud were from all around the country.

wyxuan 6y ago

ID.Me is a step in the right direction but I think articles like these underscore the need for a federal digital ID (maybe a card like they have in Germany and other countries) where I can authenticate who I am quickly and securely. Obviously there is the potential for abuse (which should be mitigated), but current system is just such a patchwork.

tehwebguy 6y ago

Does anyone actually believe this? It's like, I don't know, a thousand times more likely that someone not in prison was scamming the system and one of the easiest ways to identify that some claims were fraudulent after the fact is to check them against databases of very ineligible people that might not have been checked in the approval filter. "Currently imprisoned people" sounds like one of the most likely lists, since long dead people are probably somewhat more likely to be filtered out on the first try. "People currently in prison" is probably also a fairly easy list to hit since there are public records indicating who has been sentenced and the people in question are way, way less likely to be tipped off that a fraudulent claim has been made in their name since they are largely cut off from the world. Fraud happened, and surely some people in prison were able to hear about the increased UI benefits and apply, but I have a very hard time believing the headline.

asciident 6y ago
This is very believable, because information in prison spreads instantly and everyone knows what everyone else is doing. One inmate figures out a way to make money, and sells this information for other favors, and soon it becomes "viral".

heterodoxxed 6y ago

I'm immediately suspicious of any article that doesn't seem to understand the difference between jail and prison and uses the two interchangeably.

bastard_op 6y ago

The prison system is a worthless (unless corporate) racket (prisoners and family), double billing both external and internal sources, using 1998 activeX websites in 2013 to even try to deal or communicate that no one could even use (particularly from linux), and general malfeasance that I can't believe I witnessed with a friend going down for a DUI into that. Did he do wrong? Yes. Is this right? NO! Not to any self-respecting IT person, which he was. The whole thing is government and corporate nepotism. The drama to even send him some books to read was absurd. I had to tell him, I couldn't figure out how to work with communicating with him without installing windows xp. It was typical silly government giving grants to their cousins just because they could, hiring some scumbags developers, and with prisoners, why bother? I did some research on who ran the communications systems, and the most crap-bag company you can imagine did, at least for Arizona. I presume now this is common. That whole system needs burned down from the bottom up, including the lobbyists in the pyre.

jojobas 6y ago

Fraud calls seem to be the favorite pastime for Russian inmates. They typically target individuals though. They're not supposed to have cellphones but they bribe their way to them, purchase some personal details and typically pose as bank security officers.

naebother 6y ago

ID.me is dogshit. Just another technocratic hurdle to dissuade people from getting what they're owed. Looking forward to the inevitable hack.

burnthrow 6y ago

If you're prevented from working a real job, you should receive jobless benefits.