Lake County Gazette

State Sen. Craig Wilcox (R-McHenry) said in a Facebook post that Illinois lost almost $2 billion to fraudulent unemployment claims, and Gov. Pritzker's administration is to blame.

"While the Pritzker Administration told the federal government that Illinois paid out about $14.2 million in fraudulent pandemic assistance benefits, a new audit by the Illinois Auditor General says his figure is just a fraction of the $2 billion in fraudulent payments he could determine was made by IDES during the pandemic," Wilcox posted on Facebook. "The AG went on to say that the department's records were such a mess that he could not determine the true extent of the fraud. Pritzker, of course, blamed Trump, but the Chicago Tribune's investigative team found that Pritzker's Administration failed to follow a federal recommendation to adopt free fraud-fighting software that was made available to them. Experts have suggested the true extent of Illinois' payment of claims to fraudsters could be as high as $10 billion. Whether it comes from the federal government or state government, those are YOUR tax dollars that went toward fraud."

Auditor General Frank Mautino released a report last week which found that out of the $3.6 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance payments that Illinois sent out between July 2020 and June 2021, more than half was fraudulent, Illinois Newsroom reported. Almost $2 billion worth of payments were sent to scammers. "Overpayments associated with identity theft and traditional fraud within the PUA program was unprecedented and resulted in fraudsters using highly sophisticated techniques to take advantage of the current economic condition created by the COVID-19 pandemic," the audit stated. Up to $163 billion is estimated to have been part of identity theft nationwide.

After Pritzker ordered businesses to shut down in the spring of 2020, Illinois saw a huge spike in unemployment claims, which, in turn, led to the accumulation of billions of dollars of unemployment debt, the Center Square reported. Although Illinois put some federal relief funds toward paying down the debt, there is still a remaining balance of around $1.8 billion accruing interest. "The [Unemployment Insurance] system has faced long-standing challenges with effective service delivery and program integrity," a report released this week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said. "The historic levels of job loss during the COVID-19 pandemic worsened existing challenges."

House Republicans supported using federal relief dollars to pay off the debt in its entirety. Illinois received more than $8 billion from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021, according to NBC. "What happens when our Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund is in debt? Two things," said Deputy Minority Leader Tom Demmer (R-Dixon). "One, a major tax increase on every job in the state of Illinois and two, a benefit reduction for every worker in the state of Illinois. It's a lose-lose scenario. Taxes go up. Benefits go down."