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It's the same Department of Labor that does this: > More than $163 billion in pandemic-era unemployment benefits was likely issued in error, with a big chunk d

It's the same Department of Labor that does this: > More than $163 billion in pandemic-era unemployment benefits was likely issued in error, with a big chunk due to fraud, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/fraud-had-significant-role-in-163-billion-leak-from-pandemic-era-unemployment-system.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/27/fraud-had-significant-role-i... The amount of inenffiencies and fraud is quite astonishing.

robryk 4y ago
When talking about expected magnitudes of loss due to fraud, it's much more useful to talk in terms of relative (as opposed to absolute) magnitudes.
BurningFrog 4y ago
This is the expected and typical behaviour of a monopoly organization after several decades.
- asveikau 4y ago
  I really, really, really do not think this story gets any better with multiple private entities (startups perhaps?) competing to make determinations about disability pay. In fact that sounds horrible.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    There is a huge number of other possible organizational solutions. Among the 200 other countries, I'd bet there are dozens who handle this better.
jasonhansel 4y ago
Private businesses are just as inefficient and wasteful, as anyone who's worked in a large corporate bureaucracy can attest. It's just that they have very little transparency, so you don't hear about it on the news.
- buran77 4y ago
  Private businesses can be just as inefficient but when they are and don't clean up their act they tend not to survive too long. Public institutions are indeed bound by some rules that force some inefficiencies. But after decades working both in the private and the public sectors I can say with confidence that the public sector is substantially less efficient, for a myriad of reasons, some legitimate and some not.
  - 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
    > Private businesses can be just as inefficient but when they are and don't clean up their act they tend not to survive too long. Or they just push the inefficiencies to wherever they screw the least profitable customers, which none of their competitors especially want either.
  - jasonhansel 4y ago
    > they tend not to survive too long. Usually they try regulatory capture or anti-competitive behavior first.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Both can be bad, but private businesses tend to be much less wasteful than government because you have to make money or you go out of business, whereas government can waste your money without any thought of profit and just tax you more next year. As someone that has worked for the Military and Fortune 500s, both are bad, but the government is in a different league when it comes to wasting money.
  - richbell 4y ago
    > Both can be bad, but private businesses tend to be much less wasteful than government because you have to make money or you go out of business, whereas government can waste your money without any thought of profit and just tax you more next year. Unfortunately there are numerous private businesses that have monopolies or abuse their market dominance to knee-cap their competitors. The result is, in my opinion, worse than the government because they do have a profit motive and will agrressively drive up prices or lower wages/quality.
jnovek 4y ago
Comparing the SSA and DoL is really apples and oranges. Dealing with the SSA feels like something from the ancient past compared to other aspects of the U.S.govt.
alex_young 4y ago
Isn't the unemployment system run by the states? I'm sure the DOL has a lot of problems, but the fact that they issued a report on misallocation of unemployment funds overseen by the states doesn't seem like one of them.
loeg 4y ago
Fraud was an expected result of generous pandemic era benefits. A system which reduced fraud would have been slower at getting benefits out to intended recipients and less effective at keeping people home to reduce Covid spread.
anon84873628 4y ago
The article explains that the Department of Labor has already created a new system for tracking available jobs, but the Social Security Administration isn't using it.
didibus 4y ago
You've got to evaluate the entire process to really assess the "inefficiencies". I haven't read the actual report, but this article is really poor at giving me the right set of information. Did the program deliver on its stated goals? Was the outcome an overall net positive? How positive was the outcome? How did the errors or fraud contribute against those goals? How costly are the counter measures? Are they even worth putting in place? How effective do we predict they'd be? How confident are we that they'd even work? How much delays would have resulted from putting them in place? Etc. I like to start at least with the question: Was it a net positive? At the very least if it was, then it was a better decision then doing nothing. Now you can dig into the details and retrospect to learn how it could be done next time in an even more effective manner.

robryk 4y ago

When talking about expected magnitudes of loss due to fraud, it's much more useful to talk in terms of relative (as opposed to absolute) magnitudes.

BurningFrog 4y ago

This is the expected and typical behaviour of a monopoly organization after several decades.

asveikau 4y ago
I really, really, really do not think this story gets any better with multiple private entities (startups perhaps?) competing to make determinations about disability pay. In fact that sounds horrible.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  There is a huge number of other possible organizational solutions. Among the 200 other countries, I'd bet there are dozens who handle this better.

jasonhansel 4y ago

Private businesses are just as inefficient and wasteful, as anyone who's worked in a large corporate bureaucracy can attest. It's just that they have very little transparency, so you don't hear about it on the news.

buran77 4y ago
Private businesses can be just as inefficient but when they are and don't clean up their act they tend not to survive too long. Public institutions are indeed bound by some rules that force some inefficiencies. But after decades working both in the private and the public sectors I can say with confidence that the public sector is substantially less efficient, for a myriad of reasons, some legitimate and some not.
- 0xcde4c3db 4y ago
  > Private businesses can be just as inefficient but when they are and don't clean up their act they tend not to survive too long. Or they just push the inefficiencies to wherever they screw the least profitable customers, which none of their competitors especially want either.
- jasonhansel 4y ago
  > they tend not to survive too long. Usually they try regulatory capture or anti-competitive behavior first.
newsclues 4y ago
Both can be bad, but private businesses tend to be much less wasteful than government because you have to make money or you go out of business, whereas government can waste your money without any thought of profit and just tax you more next year. As someone that has worked for the Military and Fortune 500s, both are bad, but the government is in a different league when it comes to wasting money.
- richbell 4y ago
  > Both can be bad, but private businesses tend to be much less wasteful than government because you have to make money or you go out of business, whereas government can waste your money without any thought of profit and just tax you more next year. Unfortunately there are numerous private businesses that have monopolies or abuse their market dominance to knee-cap their competitors. The result is, in my opinion, worse than the government because they do have a profit motive and will agrressively drive up prices or lower wages/quality.

jnovek 4y ago

Comparing the SSA and DoL is really apples and oranges. Dealing with the SSA feels like something from the ancient past compared to other aspects of the U.S.govt.

alex_young 4y ago

Isn't the unemployment system run by the states? I'm sure the DOL has a lot of problems, but the fact that they issued a report on misallocation of unemployment funds overseen by the states doesn't seem like one of them.

loeg 4y ago

Fraud was an expected result of generous pandemic era benefits. A system which reduced fraud would have been slower at getting benefits out to intended recipients and less effective at keeping people home to reduce Covid spread.

anon84873628 4y ago

The article explains that the Department of Labor has already created a new system for tracking available jobs, but the Social Security Administration isn't using it.

didibus 4y ago

You've got to evaluate the entire process to really assess the "inefficiencies". I haven't read the actual report, but this article is really poor at giving me the right set of information. Did the program deliver on its stated goals? Was the outcome an overall net positive? How positive was the outcome? How did the errors or fraud contribute against those goals? How costly are the counter measures? Are they even worth putting in place? How effective do we predict they'd be? How confident are we that they'd even work? How much delays would have resulted from putting them in place? Etc. I like to start at least with the question: Was it a net positive? At the very least if it was, then it was a better decision then doing nothing. Now you can dig into the details and retrospect to learn how it could be done next time in an even more effective manner.