Kendall County Times

State Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) said in a Facebook post that Illinois lost almost $2 billion to fraudulent unemployment claims.

"A recent audit has revealed that more than half of the $3.6 billion in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance paid out in Illinois from July 2020 through June 2021 was tied to fraud," Batinick posted.

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. 

“The Pritzker administration and IDES have refused to disclose the extent to which fraud affected our unemployment system and this audit makes abundantly clear why,” Rep. Tim Butler (R-Springfield) said in a statement.

After Gov. 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 Chicago. But Republicans who stood against the motion questioned why money from the ARPA was not being utilized to help those businesses whose workers are the potential future beneficiaries.