Source: Independent Institute
by Craig Eyermann
There’s no question that billions of dollars in pandemic relief aid was stolen by fraudsters in 2020. Here’s a quick tally of the estimates of how many billions were stolen: * $400 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits processed by the Department of Labor. * $200 billion in Economic Injury Disaster Loans and the Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration. * $138 billion in fraudulent tax credits processed by the IRS. Combined, that’s $738 billion in fraudulent payments made by U.S. government agencies to fraudsters. No matter how you slice it, that’s a very big number. Testifying before Congress on February 6, 2025, Haywood Talcove, the CEO of Lexis Nexis Risk Solution, puts the total amount of Covid relief lost to fraud much higher. According to Talcove, the total U.S. taxpayer loss to fraud is at least $1 trillion.” (02/27/25)
https://blog.independent.org/2025/02/27/scale-of-pandemic-relief-fraud-grows-larger