California's Unemployment Development Department has paid more than $11 billion dollars in fraudulent claims.
The EDD's new director Rita Saenz and California Labor Secretary Julie Su announced yesterday that of the $114 billion the state has paid in unemployment claims, about ten-percent of it is fraud. Su said that amount could go up to as much as $30 billion. She added that the state did not have sufficient security measures in place and criminals took advantage of it. New security protections were put in place last fall and prevented nearly $60 billion in payments to fraudulent claims.