Derived table · Unemployment insurance
Unemployment fraud and overpayment figures, by what they measure
Official figures for fraud, improper payments and overpayments in the pandemic unemployment programs, by what each measures: 32 figures.
Rows32
Columns24
Files1 · 27 KB
FormatCSV
Source vintageDocuments dated 2021-02-22 to 2026-05-18; PaymentAccuracy.gov retrieved 2026-09-23
Published byPandemic Darlings
Acquired / built2026-09-24
Built fromUnemployment Insurance: Estimated Amount of Fraud during Pandemic Likely Between $100 Billion and $135 Billion · The Greatest Theft of American Tax Dollars: Unchecked Unemployment Fraud (testimony) · Alert Memorandum: The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) Needs to Ensure State Workforce Agencies (SWA) Implement Effective Unemployment Insurance Program Fraud Controls for High Risk Areas · Alert Memorandum: Potentially Fraudulent Unemployment Insurance Payments in High-Risk Areas Increased to $45.6 Billion · COVID-19: ETA and States Did Not Protect Pandemic-Related UI Funds from Improper Payments Including Fraud or from Payment Delays · ETA and State Workforce Agencies Need to Do More to Recover Pandemic UI Program Improper Payments · COVID-19: Recovery of Millions in Pandemic-Related UI Overpayments Improperly Waived · COVID-19: Data Sharing Project Finds Billions Paid to Same Likely Fraudsters (joint report with SBA OIG) · COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force 2024 Report · 2 more, listed under Related records
SHA-256a5051a3f6d8a6a4eda0ee83bdd748fa635911bd65596b624c504ff868f90d9fe
RightsCompiled from U.S. government public records; attribution to Pandemic Darlings requested for the compiled table.
Dictionarydictionary.csv
Download CSV 27 KBData dictionary CSVAt a glancePreviewColumnsHow to useBefore you quote a row
At a glance
Measured on the served file on 2026-09-24; the checksum above is the file these numbers describe.
Rows32
Columns24
Key
estimate_id · uniqueCells left blank108 of 768 · 14.1%
Figures32
Documents11
Definition classes11
What it is
One row is one figure as one document prints it: the Government Accountability Office's statistical estimate of fraud, the Labor Department inspector general's improper-payment and potential-fraud figures, the Labor Department's own improper payment rates, the overpayments states established and recovered, and the inspector general's counts of people charged and convicted. Each row carries a definition class, derived from the documents themselves, that says what kind of quantity the figure is; definition-classes.csv defines each of the 11 classes.
The method is the one used for the site's table of pandemic fraud estimates across all programs, applied to unemployment insurance and extended to figures that table does not hold. Six of these rows repeat figures that table already carries (GAO-23-106696 and the inspector general's $191 billion, $163 billion, $45.6 billion, $30.4 billion and $9.9 billion).
How it was built
Figures were copied from the documents. amount_as_printed keeps the document's string; amount_low and amount_high hold it as a number for sorting, with unit saying whether that number is dollars, people or a percentage. Every verbatim span was found again in the document file when the table was built (32 of 32), with whitespace collapsed and typographic ligatures folded, and pinned to its PDF page. The SHA-256 of each file is in the row.
The Labor Department's improper payment rates come from PaymentAccuracy.gov, the federal government's improper payments site, which draws them as a chart; the rows quote the value in the page's chart data and the outlays sentence printed beside it.
Preview
| estimate_id | issuer | issuer_type | document_title | document_id | document_date | programs_covered | issuer_term_verbatim | definition_class | class_group | amount_as_printed | amount_qualifier | amount_low | amount_high | unit | denominator_as_printed | share_as_printed | period_covered | note | verbatim_span | pin | document_sha256 | onsite_page | public_url |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GAO106696-01 | U.S. Government Accountability Office | audit agency | Unemployment Insurance: Estimated Amount of Fraud during Pa… | GAO-23-106696 | 2023-09 | All UI programs, including PUA, PEUC, FPUC and MEUC | fraud | FRAUD-ESTIMATE-STATISTICAL | fraud estimate | likely between $100 billion and $135 billion | likely between | 100000000000 | 135000000000 | USD | about 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively, of the total… | April 2020 through May 2023 | GAO estimates that the amount of fraud in unemployment insu… | PDF page 2 | d27a191447769930433b1374c788ab8e90361fabc96ea62b34f583aaebc… | /source-documents/2023-05-01-gao-23-106696-unemployment-ins… | https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-106696.pdf | ||
| DOLOIG191-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | The Greatest Theft of American Tax Dollars: Unchecked Unemp… | DOL-OIG testimony, February 8, 2023 | 2023-02-08 | Pandemic UI programs | improper payments | IMPROPER-PAYMENTS | improper payment | at least $191 billion | at least; could have been | 191000000000 | USD | approximate $888 billion in pandemic UI expenditures | 21.52 percent improper payment rate | UI pandemic period | Derived by applying DOL's regular-UI improper payment rate … | 21.52 percent improper payment rate to the approximate $888… | PDF page 8 | 0b256f5aae55f06d4b84a829e6d38eabdefb9e0d0933086d9a1c23dbf00… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2023-02-08-te… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |
| DOLOIG163-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | The Greatest Theft of American Tax Dollars: Unchecked Unemp… | DOL-OIG testimony, February 8, 2023 | 2023-02-08 | Pandemic UI programs | improper payments | IMPROPER-PAYMENTS | improper payment | at least $163 billion | at least; could have been | 163000000000 | USD | an estimated $872.5 billion in federal pandemic UI funding | 18.71 percent | As estimated in 2021 | The OIG's earlier figure, restated in the same testimony. | applying the 18.71 percent to an estimated $872.5 billion i… | PDF page 8 | 0b256f5aae55f06d4b84a829e6d38eabdefb9e0d0933086d9a1c23dbf00… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2023-02-08-te… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |
| DOLOIG54-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | Alert Memorandum: The Employment and Training Administratio… | DOL-OIG alert memorandum, February 22, 2021 | 2021-02-22 | Regular and pandemic UI | potentially fraudulent UI benefits | POTENTIALLY-FRAUDULENT-DISBURSED | potential fraud | more than $5.4 billion | more than | 5400000000 | USD | March 2020 through October 2020 | The '1' after the amount is a footnote marker in the docume… | We identified more than $5.4 billion 1 of potentially fraud… | PDF page 1 | 604f4b8daea3113286d6855f1b2166394a64fc8ad7a27924ec857562efb… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2021-02-22-al… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |||
| DOLOIG16-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | Alert Memorandum: Potentially Fraudulent Unemployment Insur… | DOL-OIG report 19-22-005-03-315 | 2022-09-21 | Regular and pandemic UI | potentially fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) pandemic… | POTENTIALLY-FRAUDULENT-DISBURSED | potential fraud | more than $16 billion | more than | 16000000000 | USD | As identified in the February and June 2021 memoranda | Restates the combined total of the OIG's February and June … | cumulatively identified more than $16 billion 3 in potentia… | PDF page 1 | 30520a615021aceaa6cba9a5cf04d12e63ffbfe9f7fd77a5c11cf2da307… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-21-al… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |||
| DOLOIG456-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | Alert Memorandum: Potentially Fraudulent Unemployment Insur… | DOL-OIG report 19-22-005-03-315 | 2022-09-21 | Regular and pandemic UI | cumulative total for these high-risk areas | POTENTIALLY-FRAUDULENT-DISBURSED | potential fraud | $45.6 billion | cumulative total | 45600000000 | USD | March 2020 to April 2022 | The four high-risk areas are Social Security numbers filed … | raising the cumulative total for these high-risk areas to $… | PDF page 2 | 30520a615021aceaa6cba9a5cf04d12e63ffbfe9f7fd77a5c11cf2da307… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-21-al… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |||
| DOLOIG4ST-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | COVID-19: ETA and States Did Not Protect Pandemic-Related U… | DOL-OIG report 19-22-006-03-315 | 2022-09-30 | PUA and FPUC in four tested states | paid improperly | IMPROPER-PAYMENTS | improper payment | $30.4 billion | estimated | 30400000000 | USD | $71.7 billion in PUA and FPUC benefits | 42.4 percent | March 28, 2020, through September 30, 2020 | Four states only; the OIG does not project this to the nati… | we estimated $30.4 billion of the $71.7 billion in PUA and … | PDF page 2 | 81e38c30a733b8f8756ad459ac01365fb3987282e125d1fda47d5000e75… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-30-au… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |
| DOLOIG4ST-02 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | COVID-19: ETA and States Did Not Protect Pandemic-Related U… | DOL-OIG report 19-22-006-03-315 | 2022-09-30 | PUA and FPUC in four tested states | paid to likely fraudsters | LIKELY-FRAUD-SAMPLE | potential fraud | $9.9 billion | estimated | 9900000000 | USD | March 28, 2020, through September 30, 2020 | A subset of the $30.4 billion in the row above. | We estimated $9.9 billion of that was paid to likely frauds… | PDF page 2 | 81e38c30a733b8f8756ad459ac01365fb3987282e125d1fda47d5000e75… | /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-30-au… | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |||
| DOLOIG25-01 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | ETA and State Workforce Agencies Need to Do More to Recover… | DOL-OIG report 19-25-003-03-315 | 2025-04-01 | PUA, PEUC and FPUC, all 53 state workforce agencies | overpayments that should have been established | IMPROPER-PAYMENTS | improper payment | $118.1 billion | estimated | 118100000000 | USD | April 1, 2020, through September 30, 2022 | Prepared for the OIG by Regis & Associates, PC, using ETA's… | We performed a similar analysis for all SWAs and estimated … | PDF page 13 | f42762fbfebb40bd5cf432f76bf837d2f63282866212d2cae6462a4d7fa… | /source-documents/2020-04-01-recovery-act/ | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… | |||
| DOLOIG25-02 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General | inspector general | ETA and State Workforce Agencies Need to Do More to Recover… | DOL-OIG report 19-25-003-03-315 | 2025-04-01 | PUA, PEUC and FPUC, all 53 state workforce agencies | reported established overpayments | OVERPAYMENTS-ESTABLISHED | established (administrative determination) | $36.9 billion | as reported by the states | 36900000000 | USD | April 1, 2020, through September 30, 2022 | This amount is much higher than the reported established ov… | PDF page 14 | f42762fbfebb40bd5cf432f76bf837d2f63282866212d2cae6462a4d7fa… | /source-documents/2020-04-01-recovery-act/ | https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/rep… |
First 10 of 32 rows · cells longer than 60 characters are cut with an ellipsis · shown as text, unformatted.
Files
| File | Rows | Size | SHA-256 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
ui-fraud-estimates.csvCSV, UTF-8, header row | 32 | 27,173 B | a5051a3f6d8a6a4eda0ee83bdd748fa635911bd65596b624c504ff868f90d9fe | Download ↓ |
dictionary.csvdata dictionary, 29 rows | 29 | — | built with this page | Download ↓ |
definition-classes.csvone-line definition of each class | 11 | 2,161 B | 45c15825278b9f78a5be651ad9fbae7c77a568eba7fedf3aa2f0af8877cb160f | Download ↓ |
README.mdwhat the table is, what it does not measure, and how every number can be checked | — | 5,696 B | ad35a7d6d645bc5b5db57b87d39bc50af68c560b4b88fb9fe5bf1f65ed3c2ac4 | Download ↓ |
SHA256SUMSSHA-256 of every other file on this page | — | 0 B | — | Download ↓ |
Columns
| Column | Type, measured | Blank | Distinct | Range / values | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
estimate_id | text | 0 | 32 | Stable identifier: issuer-document token plus a sequence or program suffix. | |
issuer | text | 0 | 6 | U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (14), U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (9), U.S. Department of Labor (reported on PaymentAccuracy.gov) (5), U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (reported in the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force 2024 Report) (2), U.S. Government Accountability Office (1), U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (as reported by DOL-OIG) (1) | The body that published the figure, as it names itself; where one body reports another's figure, both are named. |
issuer_type | text | 0 | 3 | inspector general (16), disbursing agency (15), audit agency (1) | inspector general, audit agency or disbursing agency. |
document_title | text | 0 | 12 | UIPL No. 11-26, Attachment I: Pandemic Overpayments Established and Recovered by State (9), ETA and State Workforce Agencies Need to Do More to Recover Pandemic UI Program Improper Payments (5), PaymentAccuracy.gov: Employment & Training Administration - Federal State Unemployment Insurance (5), The Greatest Theft of American Tax Dollars: Unchecked Unemployment Fraud (testimony) (2), Alert Memorandum: Potentially Fraudulent Unemployment Insurance Payments in High-Risk Areas Increased to $45.6 Billion (2), COVID-19: ETA and States Did Not Protect Pandemic-Related UI Funds from Improper Payments Including Fraud or from Payment Delays (2) | Title of the document the figure appears in. |
document_id | text | 0 | 11 | UIPL No. 11-26 (9), DOL-OIG report 19-25-003-03-315 (6), PaymentAccuracy.gov program page (5), DOL-OIG testimony, February 8, 2023 (2), DOL-OIG report 19-22-005-03-315 (2), DOL-OIG report 19-22-006-03-315 (2) | The issuer's report number or a short description of the document. |
document_date | text | 0 | 11 | 2026-05-18 (9), 2025-04-01 (6), 2026-09-23 (retrieved) (5), 2023-02-08 (2), 2022-09-21 (2), 2022-09-30 (2) | Date of the document, ISO format; a month where the document gives only a month. |
programs_covered | text | 0 | 12 | PUA, PEUC and FPUC, all 53 state workforce agencies (5), State UI, UCFE, UCX, EB, EUC08, PEUC and FPUC (the page's list for its monetary-loss calculation); PUA is not in it (5), PUA (4), Regular and pandemic UI (3), FPUC (3), PEUC (3) | The unemployment programs the figure covers, in the document's terms. |
issuer_term_verbatim | text | 0 | 21 | The document's own words for what the figure counts, copied from the span. | |
definition_class | text | 0 | 11 | IMPROPER-PAYMENT-RATE (6), IMPROPER-PAYMENTS (5), POTENTIALLY-FRAUDULENT-DISBURSED (4), OVERPAYMENTS-ESTABLISHED (4), OVERPAYMENTS-RECOVERED (4), PROGRAM-SIZE (3) | What kind of quantity the figure is, from definition-classes.csv. Figures in different classes measure different things. |
class_group | text | 0 | 7 | improper payment (11), recovery measure (6), potential fraud (5), established (administrative determination) (4), program size (3), charged or convicted (2) | The broad group the class belongs to: fraud estimate, improper payment, potential fraud, established (administrative determination), recovery measure, charged or convicted, or program size. |
amount_as_printed | text | 0 | 32 | The figure exactly as the document prints it, with its words. For the PaymentAccuracy.gov rates, the value in the page's chart data. | |
amount_qualifier | text | 0 | 11 | as reported by the states (10), rate as published in the page's chart data (5), more than (3), estimated (3), as printed (3), at least; could have been (2) | The document's hedge on the figure (at least, more than, estimated, likely between) or how it was reported. |
amount_low | number | 0 | 32 | 13.14 – 443.6B · median 7.7B | The figure as a number, for sorting: dollars, a count, or a percentage, as the unit column says. The lower end where the document prints a range. |
amount_high | integer | 31 | 1 | 135B – 135B · median 135B | The upper end of a range; blank where the document prints a single figure. |
unit | text | 0 | 4 | USD (24), percent of outlays (5), people (2), percent (1) | What amount_low counts: USD, people, percent of outlays or percent. |
denominator_as_printed | text | 20 | 12 | approximate $888 billion in pandemic UI expenditures (1), an estimated $872.5 billion in federal pandemic UI funding (1), $71.7 billion in PUA and FPUC benefits (1), $49.6 billion in established nonfraudulent UI overpayments (1), $443.62 billion total benefits paid (1), $131.75 billion total benefits paid (1) | What the document divides by or compares against, in its words; blank where it gives none. |
share_as_printed | text | 26 | 6 | about 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively, of the total amount of UI benefits paid during the pandemic (1), 21.52 percent improper payment rate (1), 18.71 percent (1), 42.4 percent (1), 22 percent (1), of which 17 percent was the overpayment rate (1) | The share or rate the document attaches to the figure, in its words. |
period_covered | text | 1 | 17 | The period the figure covers, in the document's words. | |
note | text | 16 | 16 | What the row does and does not establish, written for this table. Not a quotation. | |
verbatim_span | text | 0 | 24 | The words of the document that carry the figure, with whitespace collapsed and typographic ligatures folded. | |
pin | text | 0 | 10 | PDF page 18 (9), PDF page 2 (5), page text (5), PDF page 8 (2), PDF page 1 (2), PDF page 13 (2) | Where the span sits: the PDF page, or 'page text' for a web page. |
document_sha256 | text | 0 | 11 | f9e95eff3dd00df9e6d1bbf090923e77c135d8f3e0975fef60103ce3a52843ae (9), f42762fbfebb40bd5cf432f76bf837d2f63282866212d2cae6462a4d7fa6ff0a (6), cbf4c67a9dd3c35a928baa96d8a8b1b357ff5afa60ddbae8c13c42cc858adbcd (5), 0b256f5aae55f06d4b84a829e6d38eabdefb9e0d0933086d9a1c23dbf0064e52 (2), 30520a615021aceaa6cba9a5cf04d12e63ffbfe9f7fd77a5c11cf2da30797654 (2), 81e38c30a733b8f8756ad459ac01365fb3987282e125d1fda47d5000e752037e (2) | SHA-256 of the file the span was checked against. |
onsite_page | text | 14 | 9 | /source-documents/2020-04-01-recovery-act/ (6), /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2023-02-08-testimony-greatest-theft/ (2), /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-21-alert-potentially-fraudulent-ui-payments/ (2), /court-filings/dol-oig-unemployment-insurance/2022-09-30-audit-eta-states-did-not-protect-ui-funds/ (2), /source-documents/2024-04-09-covid-19-fraud-enforcement-task-force-2024-report-april-2024-council-of-the-ins/ (2), /source-documents/2023-05-01-gao-23-106696-unemployment-insurance-estimated-amount-of-fraud-during-pandemic/ (1) | Address on pandemicdarlings.com of the page that serves the document; blank where the site has no page for it. |
public_url | text | 0 | 11 | https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/advisories/UIPL/2026/UIPL%2011-26/UIPL%2011-26%20Complete.pdf (9), https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2025-04/19-25-003-03-315%20COVID-19%20-%20UI%20Improper%20Payments%20Final%20Rpt_040125.pdf (6), https://paymentaccuracy.gov/program/dol-employment-training-administration-federal-state-unemplo-f85701dc (5), https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2024-04/19-23-003-03-315.pdf (2), https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2022-09/19-22-005-03-315.pdf (2), https://www.oversight.gov/sites/default/files/documents/reports/2022-10/19-22-006-03-315-COVID-19-ETA-and-States-Did-Not-Protect-Pandemic-Related-UI-Funds-Improper-Payments.pdf (2) | The document's address on the issuer's website. |
Type, blanks, distinct count, and range are measured on the file. The same table as CSV: dictionary.csv.
How to use it
Specific to this file, measured on it: keys, joins, encodings, units, and the values that will trip a naive count.
- One row per
estimate_id. Filter ondefinition_classorclass_groupbefore comparing any two rows. amount_lowis not always dollars. Theunitcolumn says whether it is USD, people or a percentage.onsite_pageis blank for 14 rows whose documents have no page on this site;public_urlis always filled.- LF line endings, UTF-8, 27,173 bytes.
Before you quote a row
- Do not add the rows. They sit in 11 classes and several overlap: the $9.9 billion is part of the $30.4 billion, the $16 billion is part of the $45.6 billion, and the established, recovered and waived amounts are pieces of the same overpayments. Adding across rows produces a number no issuer published.
- Improper payment is not fraud. The inspector general's "at least $191 billion" applies the Labor Department's 21.52 percent improper payment rate to about $888 billion in pandemic unemployment spending; improper payments include error and ineligibility as well as fraud, and the inspector general says only that "a significant portion" was fraud.
- Only one row estimates fraud itself. GAO's range of $100 billion to $135 billion, for April 2020 through May 2023, is the only statistical estimate of the amount of fraud in the table.
- Potential fraud is flagged, not found. The $5.4 billion, $16 billion and $45.6 billion are payments to Social Security numbers the inspector general's data matching flagged in four high-risk areas: filed in multiple states, belonging to deceased people, belonging to federal prisoners, or used with suspicious email accounts.
- The published rates leave PUA out. PaymentAccuracy.gov lists the programs in the Labor Department's monetary-loss calculation as "traditional state UI, UCFE, UCX, EB, EUC08 benefits, and PEUC and FPUC CARES Act benefits". The 35.9 percent PUA rate comes from a separate Employment and Training Administration review, as the inspector general reports it; that review, the inspector general says, "was not designed to produce a statistically valid rate for individual states".
- Established overpayments are determinations, and far below the estimates. States reported $36.9 billion established in PUA, PEUC and FPUC through September 30, 2022; the inspector general estimated $118.1 billion should have been.
- Counts of people are for a stated window. The 512 charged and 531 convicted are the Labor Department inspector general's figures for August 2022 through December 31, 2023, reported in the Justice Department task force's 2024 report. They are not totals since 2020.
- Each row is fixed to its document's date. Later documents restate or revise figures; where a document restates an earlier figure, the row says so.
- No row is a finding by this archive, and the table draws no conclusion about the true amount of fraud. It covers only figures in documents the archive can show. Claims made in public without a published method are not included.
Cite this table. Name the source vintage; the numbers depend on it.
Unemployment fraud and overpayment figures, by what they measure, compiled from GAO, U.S. Department of Labor, Department of Labor Office of Inspector General and Justice Department documents dated 2021-02-22 to 2026-05-18, and PaymentAccuracy.gov retrieved 2026-09-23. Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/data/ui-fraud-estimates/, SHA-256 a5051a3f6d8a6a4eda0ee83bdd748fa635911bd65596b624c504ff868f90d9fe