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I understand the concern that people aren't getting help when they need it, but the numbers around unemployment insurance fraud are unbelievable. Axios reported

I understand the concern that people aren't getting help when they need it, but the numbers around unemployment insurance fraud are unbelievable. Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen. [1] My dad was one of the 21.5 million who had their SSNs stolen as a part of having a government background check done [2], and a couple weeks ago he was personally a victim of someone fraudulently applying for unemployment benefits on his behalf. I'm not saying that facial recognition is a reasonable way to try to fix this, but we're talking about $400,000,000,000 being stolen. They have to figure something out. [1]: https://www.axios.com/pandemic-unemployment-fraud-benefits-stolen-a937ad9d-0973-4aad-814f-4ca47b72f67f.html https://www.axios.com/pandemic-unemployment-fraud-benefits-s... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/office-of-personnel-management-hackers-got-data-of-millions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/10/us/office-of-personnel-ma...

seizethegdgap 5y ago
half of all unemployment insurance *during the pandemic*. 10% in 2019 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-fraud-spreads-across-u-s-as-coronavirus-boosts-claims-11591189201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-fraud-spreads-acro...) Conservative legislatures and governors/presidents have spent the last few decades gutting the agencies that handle unemployment, and then suddenly an extra 10% of the country is unemployed for weeks. Yeah, we're gonna see an increase in fraud.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  In my deep blue State, progressives have had control of the government for a long time. They sent the better part of a billion dollars in unemployment aid to literal Nigerian scammers. No one even disagrees that the cause was gross negligence and incompetence. “Mistakes were made.” Somehow, the person responsible for this hilarious and shameful episode failed upward and is now a member of the Biden administration. I’m sure “conservatives” are responsible for many ills but where I live this isn’t one of them because they were never involved. If you want to fix it, you have to be honest about the problem.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    > If you want to fix it, you have to be honest about the problem. If you read the comments on this topic it’s pretty clear that there are a bunch of people that don’t want to fix the problem.
    - jandrewrogers 5y ago
      That does not absolve those who responsible for the problem of any culpability. Whataboutism isn’t valid response. The problems with unemployment aid were bipartisan. In my State, the Democrats own that mess because they created it. That isn’t a partisan assertion, that is a non-controversial observation of reality. I’ve never been a conservative but I am not so much in denial that I will pretend that the comedic failure of execution at the State level by Democrats was actually the fault of some nebulous “conservatives”. The conservatives were never involved. The Democrats own that failure, and you would hope they have the self-awareness to recognize that.
      - systemvoltage 5y ago
        We don't like hearing negative things about Democratic party on this forum.
        syshum 5y ago
        Democrats seem to be judged by their intentions not their results Republicans seem to be judged by their results and if the results are perceived bad their intentions are asssumed to be malicious and based in an ism or phobia of some kind
        systemvoltage 5y ago
        Btw, I am a Democrat and occassionally I'd like to call bullshit on many things. Challenge our own assumptions. But in last couple of years, that's become really difficult. I am vehemently against censorship and it appears to me that Democrats have unconstrained power since Big Tech and the entire internet is on our side. This is feeling a bit dangerous to me. Your comment on Republican party is spot on. I'd be down with a more centrist and less populist party - Lincoln party would be something I'd consider. I also don't take politics as seriously as so many people in this country. It shouldn't consume you. It should be a peaceful debate with picking good points and rejecting crazy ideas. My biggest criticism of HN is that it doesn't know how to handle conflicting interests and most people here have lost their ability to speak freely and against mainstream. It used to be that HN was a contrarian community with lots of interesting perspectives without downvotes. It's no longer the same. My hunch is that social media is shaping the world to be more in-line with mob mentality and it is dismantling the founding principles of America. America is headquarted in Menlo Park, CA.
- refurb 5y ago
  Huh? CA hasn’t had a Republican majority in its legislature in a couple decades? Eventually those govts have to take some responsibility for the rampant fraud.
Lammy 5y ago
> Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen. I can't help but notice that people tend to talk about unemployment in terms of percentages instead of in terms of dollars. While 2020 was obviously an exception it looks like the US has paid out generally around $30billion most years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W825RC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W825RC1 Lots of companies make more than every year in pure profit, not just revenue. Apple and Google made more than that last quarter: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/gross-... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gros... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/gross-p... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/gro... These companies are all doing the "Double Irish" tax dance, so how much of that profit do you think is flowing back into the USA? I feel like if it were really about the dollars we would be fighting these corporate tax arrangements instead of trying to make poor peoples' lives even worse than they already are.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Your argument is that high levels of fraud by international crime syndicates isn't the real problem, the problem is that we don't tax corporations enough to be able to withstand that fraud? I'm sorry, that's completely ridiculous.
  - _moof 5y ago
    When you profile code, do you spend your time fixing the most resource-intensive function or the function whose name you don’t like? Maybe you disagree with the suggestion that there are way, way bigger fish to fry, and we should prioritize our limited resources accordingly. But to say that it’s “completely ridiculous?” That’s a little over the top.
    - unishark 5y ago
      In your analogy your implication would be that the software engineer should spend their effort in the corporate boardroom arguing for changes in product requirements rather than in fixing bugs in the current product.
erik_seaberg 5y ago
Colorado sent me an unemployment benefit debit card. They get some credit for using my actual address (some scammer was hoping to steal it from our mailbox, I guess?) but they should have noticed I’ve lived in California for a decade and have literally never been employed in Colorado.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Typically that type of issue is addressed in audit. There’s no requirement that you live in a state to collect or file for unemployment. UI validates against IRS data and may or may not know where you are based out of. My guess is some project manager at a fraud boiler room stuck your zip code in in the “CO” folder instead of “CA”. The people who file these claims are literally on the phone all day and know what to say.
elliekelly 5y ago
I guess I don’t really understand why unemployment payments don’t “come” from the (former) employer? They already know the direct deposit details and have a rough idea of the eligibility. It seems like the easy solution would be for a partial “paycheck” to keep being deposited and have the state make payments to the employer, instead. If Acme Corp. gets an unemployment claim for an employee who’s still working they’re in a much better position to quickly recognize the fraud. And if they get a legitimate claim for a former employee but to a previously unknown bank account it’s easy enough for them to get in touch with the employee to double check the details.
- triceratops 5y ago
  Acme Corp's unemployment insurance premiums go up when their employees file claims. It's in their interest to deny claims. You'd be moving fraud around somewhat. Is it possible that the total fraud would be lower because most businesses would prefer to follow the law and not be busted? Maybe, but it's hard to say. In California the UI office will get in touch with your former employer to verify your claim. So there's that at least. Not to mention, what do you do when people lose their jobs because the employer has gone out of business?
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  Unemployment insurance is part of the social safety net that is paid to the State. Among many other issues with tying this to the employer (much like with healthcare), the employer may not even exist anymore but the former employee is still entitled to unemployment. States that weren’t doing it from the beginning did start checking with employers to determine if a person was actually unemployed.
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  It's make more sense for them to be distributed by the tax authorities, but we love to do things the stupid way.
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    The tax authorities don’t do such a great job of making sure they send the money to the right people either.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I'm not saying that facial recognition is a reasonable way to try to fix this, but we're talking about $400,000,000,000 being stolen No, we’re talking about a firm whose business depends on the perception of the magnitude of the problem claiming that. The source of that number in the article you cite is...the CEO of ID.me. And when pressed by CNN to support that staggering figure ID.me responded with...promotional material for their product, instead. [0] It couldn't be any more clear that its a BS number the CEO pulled out of his colon for promotional reasons. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/politics/what-matters-unemployment-fraud/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/politics/what-matters-unemplo...
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Perhaps someone should be FOIAing agreements between state unemployment departments and ID.me, and perhaps even the Veterans Administration, the Social Security Administration, and other federal agencies (mentioned in the posted article) who are leveraging a private firm for identity proofing services using facial recognition. Fraud should be prevented, for sure! But a private corporation black box governing access to social safety nets is not to be tolerated.
  - d110af5ccf 5y ago
    I don't think it should be legal for either the state or federal government to outsource such a sensitive and important function.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I agree. https://login.gov https://login.gov https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-authentication-and-identity-proofing-services-to-a-limited-number-of-federally-funded-state-and-local-government-programs https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-auth... https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8215/text?r=20&s=1 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8215... https://billhunt.dev/blog/2020/12/18/federal-policy-recs/#4-solve-identity-once-and-for-all https://billhunt.dev/blog/2020/12/18/federal-policy-recs/#4-...
beckman466 5y ago
> but the numbers around unemployment insurance fraud are unbelievable. Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen If we’re talking about theft, why not talk about government bailouts of banks, low inheritance tax for the 1%, the corrupt military contracts and the millions of other ways the elite plunders the commons and steals from the working class? I’m pretty sure when we have the numbers somewhere in the future, unemployment insurance fraud will be a drop in the bucket compared to all of that. Also, seeing the level of alienation; the miserable conditions of American ‘jobs’ these days (I’m looking at you Bezos), I seriously do not blame people for trying to get more cash to escape their exploitation.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
8note 5y ago
How expensive is thus facial recognition tech? I'd rather pay out tax money to fraudsters than send the same amount to "people who will keep the money away from fraudsters"
joecool1029 5y ago
>Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen. Oh hell for NJ you can just send in fake unemployment claims to any business and the burden is on the business to dispute every claim. If they fail to respond or it's lost in the mail then it effectively defaults and the state pays out the scammer. I have a folder of fake claims to my company over the years. A few years back the state decided to pay one of those false claims out for a women I've never met that doesn't even live in my state, I filed the fraud report, tried to dispute it in the mail, met with my state representatives about it, called the courts, and ultimately never got a resolution. Being stuck with having to pay a higher (we'll call it tax) rate for my own salary, I instead paid distributions for the rest of the year and converted the business from S-corp to single member LLC out of spite. When COVID rolled around and I was eligible to collect unemployment for a month or so last year, I filed a claim that's been stuck in 'pending' since April 2020. Yay shitty COBOL code, I guess. >They have to figure something out. Or acknowledge that it's fucked beyond repair and replace it with something else like basic income. It'd likely be cheaper and more efficient.

seizethegdgap 5y ago

half of all unemployment insurance *during the pandemic*. 10% in 2019 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-fraud-spreads-across-u-s-as-coronavirus-boosts-claims-11591189201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-fraud-spreads-acro...) Conservative legislatures and governors/presidents have spent the last few decades gutting the agencies that handle unemployment, and then suddenly an extra 10% of the country is unemployed for weeks. Yeah, we're gonna see an increase in fraud.

jandrewrogers 5y ago
In my deep blue State, progressives have had control of the government for a long time. They sent the better part of a billion dollars in unemployment aid to literal Nigerian scammers. No one even disagrees that the cause was gross negligence and incompetence. “Mistakes were made.” Somehow, the person responsible for this hilarious and shameful episode failed upward and is now a member of the Biden administration. I’m sure “conservatives” are responsible for many ills but where I live this isn’t one of them because they were never involved. If you want to fix it, you have to be honest about the problem.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  > If you want to fix it, you have to be honest about the problem. If you read the comments on this topic it’s pretty clear that there are a bunch of people that don’t want to fix the problem.
  - jandrewrogers 5y ago
    That does not absolve those who responsible for the problem of any culpability. Whataboutism isn’t valid response. The problems with unemployment aid were bipartisan. In my State, the Democrats own that mess because they created it. That isn’t a partisan assertion, that is a non-controversial observation of reality. I’ve never been a conservative but I am not so much in denial that I will pretend that the comedic failure of execution at the State level by Democrats was actually the fault of some nebulous “conservatives”. The conservatives were never involved. The Democrats own that failure, and you would hope they have the self-awareness to recognize that.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      We don't like hearing negative things about Democratic party on this forum.
      - syshum 5y ago
        Democrats seem to be judged by their intentions not their results Republicans seem to be judged by their results and if the results are perceived bad their intentions are asssumed to be malicious and based in an ism or phobia of some kind
        systemvoltage 5y ago
        Btw, I am a Democrat and occassionally I'd like to call bullshit on many things. Challenge our own assumptions. But in last couple of years, that's become really difficult. I am vehemently against censorship and it appears to me that Democrats have unconstrained power since Big Tech and the entire internet is on our side. This is feeling a bit dangerous to me. Your comment on Republican party is spot on. I'd be down with a more centrist and less populist party - Lincoln party would be something I'd consider. I also don't take politics as seriously as so many people in this country. It shouldn't consume you. It should be a peaceful debate with picking good points and rejecting crazy ideas. My biggest criticism of HN is that it doesn't know how to handle conflicting interests and most people here have lost their ability to speak freely and against mainstream. It used to be that HN was a contrarian community with lots of interesting perspectives without downvotes. It's no longer the same. My hunch is that social media is shaping the world to be more in-line with mob mentality and it is dismantling the founding principles of America. America is headquarted in Menlo Park, CA.
refurb 5y ago
Huh? CA hasn’t had a Republican majority in its legislature in a couple decades? Eventually those govts have to take some responsibility for the rampant fraud.

Lammy 5y ago

> Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen. I can't help but notice that people tend to talk about unemployment in terms of percentages instead of in terms of dollars. While 2020 was obviously an exception it looks like the US has paid out generally around $30billion most years: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W825RC1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/W825RC1 Lots of companies make more than every year in pure profit, not just revenue. Apple and Google made more than that last quarter: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FB/facebook/gross-... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gros... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/gross-p... https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/gross-profit https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MSFT/microsoft/gro... These companies are all doing the "Double Irish" tax dance, so how much of that profit do you think is flowing back into the USA? I feel like if it were really about the dollars we would be fighting these corporate tax arrangements instead of trying to make poor peoples' lives even worse than they already are.

nickysielicki 5y ago
Your argument is that high levels of fraud by international crime syndicates isn't the real problem, the problem is that we don't tax corporations enough to be able to withstand that fraud? I'm sorry, that's completely ridiculous.
- _moof 5y ago
  When you profile code, do you spend your time fixing the most resource-intensive function or the function whose name you don’t like? Maybe you disagree with the suggestion that there are way, way bigger fish to fry, and we should prioritize our limited resources accordingly. But to say that it’s “completely ridiculous?” That’s a little over the top.
  - unishark 5y ago
    In your analogy your implication would be that the software engineer should spend their effort in the corporate boardroom arguing for changes in product requirements rather than in fixing bugs in the current product.

erik_seaberg 5y ago

Colorado sent me an unemployment benefit debit card. They get some credit for using my actual address (some scammer was hoping to steal it from our mailbox, I guess?) but they should have noticed I’ve lived in California for a decade and have literally never been employed in Colorado.

Spooky23 5y ago
Typically that type of issue is addressed in audit. There’s no requirement that you live in a state to collect or file for unemployment. UI validates against IRS data and may or may not know where you are based out of. My guess is some project manager at a fraud boiler room stuck your zip code in in the “CO” folder instead of “CA”. The people who file these claims are literally on the phone all day and know what to say.

elliekelly 5y ago

I guess I don’t really understand why unemployment payments don’t “come” from the (former) employer? They already know the direct deposit details and have a rough idea of the eligibility. It seems like the easy solution would be for a partial “paycheck” to keep being deposited and have the state make payments to the employer, instead. If Acme Corp. gets an unemployment claim for an employee who’s still working they’re in a much better position to quickly recognize the fraud. And if they get a legitimate claim for a former employee but to a previously unknown bank account it’s easy enough for them to get in touch with the employee to double check the details.

triceratops 5y ago
Acme Corp's unemployment insurance premiums go up when their employees file claims. It's in their interest to deny claims. You'd be moving fraud around somewhat. Is it possible that the total fraud would be lower because most businesses would prefer to follow the law and not be busted? Maybe, but it's hard to say. In California the UI office will get in touch with your former employer to verify your claim. So there's that at least. Not to mention, what do you do when people lose their jobs because the employer has gone out of business?
jandrewrogers 5y ago
Unemployment insurance is part of the social safety net that is paid to the State. Among many other issues with tying this to the employer (much like with healthcare), the employer may not even exist anymore but the former employee is still entitled to unemployment. States that weren’t doing it from the beginning did start checking with employers to determine if a person was actually unemployed.
anigbrowl 5y ago
It's make more sense for them to be distributed by the tax authorities, but we love to do things the stupid way.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  The tax authorities don’t do such a great job of making sure they send the money to the right people either.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> I'm not saying that facial recognition is a reasonable way to try to fix this, but we're talking about $400,000,000,000 being stolen No, we’re talking about a firm whose business depends on the perception of the magnitude of the problem claiming that. The source of that number in the article you cite is...the CEO of ID.me. And when pressed by CNN to support that staggering figure ID.me responded with...promotional material for their product, instead. [0] It couldn't be any more clear that its a BS number the CEO pulled out of his colon for promotional reasons. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/politics/what-matters-unemployment-fraud/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/politics/what-matters-unemplo...

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Perhaps someone should be FOIAing agreements between state unemployment departments and ID.me, and perhaps even the Veterans Administration, the Social Security Administration, and other federal agencies (mentioned in the posted article) who are leveraging a private firm for identity proofing services using facial recognition. Fraud should be prevented, for sure! But a private corporation black box governing access to social safety nets is not to be tolerated.
- d110af5ccf 5y ago
  I don't think it should be legal for either the state or federal government to outsource such a sensitive and important function.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    I agree. https://login.gov https://login.gov https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-authentication-and-identity-proofing-services-to-a-limited-number-of-federally-funded-state-and-local-government-programs https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-auth... https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8215/text?r=20&s=1 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/8215... https://billhunt.dev/blog/2020/12/18/federal-policy-recs/#4-solve-identity-once-and-for-all https://billhunt.dev/blog/2020/12/18/federal-policy-recs/#4-...

beckman466 5y ago

> but the numbers around unemployment insurance fraud are unbelievable. Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen If we’re talking about theft, why not talk about government bailouts of banks, low inheritance tax for the 1%, the corrupt military contracts and the millions of other ways the elite plunders the commons and steals from the working class? I’m pretty sure when we have the numbers somewhere in the future, unemployment insurance fraud will be a drop in the bucket compared to all of that. Also, seeing the level of alienation; the miserable conditions of American ‘jobs’ these days (I’m looking at you Bezos), I seriously do not blame people for trying to get more cash to escape their exploitation.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

8note 5y ago

How expensive is thus facial recognition tech? I'd rather pay out tax money to fraudsters than send the same amount to "people who will keep the money away from fraudsters"

joecool1029 5y ago

>Axios reported that as much as half of all unemployment insurance paid out has been stolen. Oh hell for NJ you can just send in fake unemployment claims to any business and the burden is on the business to dispute every claim. If they fail to respond or it's lost in the mail then it effectively defaults and the state pays out the scammer. I have a folder of fake claims to my company over the years. A few years back the state decided to pay one of those false claims out for a women I've never met that doesn't even live in my state, I filed the fraud report, tried to dispute it in the mail, met with my state representatives about it, called the courts, and ultimately never got a resolution. Being stuck with having to pay a higher (we'll call it tax) rate for my own salary, I instead paid distributions for the rest of the year and converted the business from S-corp to single member LLC out of spite. When COVID rolled around and I was eligible to collect unemployment for a month or so last year, I filed a claim that's been stuck in 'pending' since April 2020. Yay shitty COBOL code, I guess. >They have to figure something out. Or acknowledge that it's fucked beyond repair and replace it with something else like basic income. It'd likely be cheaper and more efficient.