www.nbcnews.com
PPP was for “small businesses” - and to the surprise of nobody, was fraudulently abused by the wealthy. It undoubtedly helped many businesses that needed it. But the large dollar amounts and rapid deployment of the bill without sufficient safeguards were an invitation to fraudsters.
Who abused the unemployment benefits? Let’s see the evidence.
The real tragedy was that wage-earners observed that they seemed to be getting exploited to their detriment and found that pandemic assistance allowed them to say FO to their bosses, thus upending the delicate balance of the labor market and forcing employers to pay people without also screwing them over. It remains to be seen if this effect will be lasting or that the business community can restore proper order upon the peons.
Who abused the unemployment benefits? Let’s see the evidence.
Funny, there are MANY documented cases of PPP abuse, but the supposed “abuse” of the unemployment benefits is “I know a guy.” More like: your job didn’t get shut down during the pandemic, so you think the people collecting unemployment are lazy or something. This was a bullshit line of reasoning that Republicans tried to push in order to skewer Joe Biden during the campaign too. It failed miserably. People know better. Believe what you want, but most people who needed benefits to pay their bills aren’t abusing anything. The people who bought Lamborghinis? THAT is abuse.
Man purchased Lamborghini after receiving $3.9 million PPP loan | Internal Revenue Service
February 11, 2021 — A Florida man pleaded guilty for fraudulently obtaining approximately $3.9 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and using those funds, in part, to purchase a $318,000 Lamborghini sports car for himself, announced Special Agent in Charge Michael J. De Palma of...www.irs.gov
Did you even follow what REALLY happened with unemployment during the pandemic? Many local unemployment offices didn’t have the resources to handle all the claims, so people waited many months to get any benefits.
As for actual unemployment fraud in Texas: searching for cases, I found a Texan who used false identities to get a bunch of unemployment checks sent to her from Massachusetts. There were also people who used fake identities to try and get money. I don’t see any of the supposed cases you are talking about.
I guess the GOP politicians' game of ignoring the real issues and “punching down” on marginalized groups is being adopted by their voters as well. It’s not about whether poor people are better or worse than rich people. It’s about the fact that the SYSTEM treats rich people infinitely better than poor people. And yet some people go ballistic if a poor person gets enough unemployment insurance to buy food for their kids during a pandemic.
I mentioned Rick Scott earlier. He stole billions through medicare fraud. He is a Senator now. If you’re not rich and you steal even $100, enjoy your time in prison. I’m not advocating for small-time criminals to act with impunity. I’m advocating for Rick Scott and his ilk to be in prison for life for stealing billions instead of being made Senators.
www.kxan.com
Where is the evidence that so many people committed fraud in the way you said? That’s my question here. You made a generalized statement of “so many people were abusing that crap” that was only backed up by a handful of anecdotes. Then you doubled down with “unemployment fraud was out of control” and indicated that of everybody you knew, only ONE person actually was supposed to get the benefits.
According to Texas’ own numbers: They paid out $49.2 billion in claims, and they believe $893 million was claimed fraudulently. Less than 2%. They also found most fraudulent claims were from identity thieves, often one person or a group scamming many identities. So... much of the fraudulently obtained money went to a fairly small number of cyber criminals. Not “low wage earners” but rather a network of fairly sophisticated criminals.
It is clear that the people actually committing fraud are being tracked down. Just like with PPP, they probably won’t catch them all. But your above statements are unsupported, and when compared to the actual data, are clearly inaccurate. Here’s a good article with some solid data on the numbers in Texas.
Cybercriminals steal nearly $1B from Texas unemployment fund
Since the pandemic hit in March 2020, cybercriminals have launched an assault on the nation’s unemployment systems. The Texas Workforce Commission’s nearing $1 billion in lost unemployment payments…
Because they work?
