With the extreme number of unemployment claims that have been submitted over the last few months, there may have been some mistakes made. The New York Times reported on September 11th that there seems to be a large number of fraudulent claims being filed with the hopes to extend unemployment benefits. This is also causing concern over whether the unemployment numbers are actually correct or miscounted; there is a possibility that the 15 million recipients is overstated by five million or more. These issues give way to a number of issues. First, if the number is misrepresented by that much it can alter how we perceive the economic impact of the pandemic. Also, by implementing ways to filter out and reprimand the fraudulent claims, it can make receiving benefits harder for those who are filing in good faith. A reason they cite for this issue is counting claims multiple times due to valuing speed over accuracy as the government pushes to send out benefits as quickly as possible. The counting errors were caused by the buildup of claims not being issued for weeks and being counted multiple times as they were finally processed. The extra monitoring required is putting more stress on the states due to the added labor and resources being allocated to the detection efforts. There are still many issues due to the pandemic and millions without jobs; however, it should be noted that the situation may not be represented properly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/business/economy/pandemic-unemployment-assistance-fraud.html
This isn't too surprising to me because there have been so many mistakes in the benefits process during Covid because there are so many people and businesses getting additional help from the government. Knowing personally a few college students who have received the stimulus check with out applying or being qualified for it, to the number of people not looking for jobs because unemployment benefits are far superior than a minimum wage job. There are many holes in the system that cause people to try and jump through loopholes to get benefits they don't necessarily qualify for.
ReplyDeletewith how fast they tried to roll out the whole relief package its not a major surprise that many people have received unemployment or stimulus checks that should not have been give to them. This is one of the problems when you rush out relief packages you have a lot of people slip through the cracks but the package was still needed and helped more then it hurt
ReplyDeleteI think the amount of uncertainty right now from the top down is really hurting the people. As they are unsure with if or when their next unemployment benefits will be, and how much of a stimulus may be coming their way, people are going to try and remain on these benefits. The US needs to start getting people back to work and being more sure with the future of the economy can help.
ReplyDeleteIt is not surprising to hear that there could be that many fraudulent claims of unemployment. The extra unemployment benefits are too great for people to miss out on even if they don’t qualify. I do think that the government should be more cautious about who they are sending money to for the exact reason that they don’t misjudge the true numbers. I think they should just stop the unemployment benefits so then they no longer have this large of an issue. The true uncertainty of the economy is really a significant issue. People need certainty in the economy for it to recover and there isn’t much of that with the back and forth of how much there is in the next unemployment benefits and if there is or isn’t going to be more stimulus money. Would there be more incentive to find work without the extra benefits?
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