Arizona has become a battleground against the so-called “crime of the century,” as the state faces the daunting task of recovering funds from pandemic-related unemployment fraud, according to FOX 10 Phoenix.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) has recovered a significant sum, approximately $1.83 billion of the estimated $5.8 billion that slipped into swindlers’ pockets—and in a context where the recovery rate nationwide hovers in the single digits, Arizona stands out with nearly a 30% recovery rate.
The state has also convicted 900 people, with hundreds more facing charges, despite the fact that the federal statute of limitations on pandemic unemployment fraud expired last month.
This concerted effort by Arizona comes amid a push by the Ways and Means Committee to extend the statute of limitations for the recovery and prosecution of these funds; the committee has passed a slew of bills to protect taxpayer rights and facilitate the retrieval of stolen money—bills that are unambiguously crucial given estimates from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that place the missing funds between $100 to $135 billion, with only $5 billion recovered.
If we don’t extend the statute of limitations, those who committed the largest theft of taxpayer dollars in American history will go unpunished.”
On a more specific level, the Ways and Means Committee has proposed measures to simplify tax filing and protect taxpayers from the effects of check fraud, such as requiring the IRS to establish a direct deposit system for replacing stolen checks.
According to the committee’s legislation overview, one of these is the Pandemic Unemployment Fraud Enforcement Act, which seeks to extend the statute of limitations for CARES Act-related unemployment insurance fraud to ten years, giving law enforcement enough time to address open cases and initiate new ones in order to hold fraudsters accountable.
This move is similar to actions taken by Congress in 2022 to extend the statute of limitations for fraud in other pandemic relief programs.
Arizona’s aggressive approach to addressing unemployment fraud reflects not only the state’s determination, but also a broader problem that has seeped into the fabric of pandemic relief efforts; as Doug Holmes, affiliated with Strategic Services on Unemployment & Workers’ Compensation, summarized in an interview with FOX 10 Phoenix, states face numerous challenges in clawing back the funds: “Not only do you have the issue of who is the fraudster?
But then, trying to track them down for prosecution,” and this is where legislation comes into play, providing states with the legal backing they need to make meaningful progress against fraudsters, who would otherwise continue to evade justice.
