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Massive Unemployment Fraud Uncovered in Numerous States

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When the first massive coronavirus aid package was passed in Congress it included substantial benefits for workers who lost their jobs because of the government-mandated shutdown. One of the biggest was the federal enhancement of state unemployment benefits, increasing weekly payments by up to six hundred dollars. As we quickly learned, Senate Republicans’ concerns over not having a cap on those benefits to prevent the payments from exceeding the employee’s previous salary were fully justified.

That didn’t wind up being the only problem with the plan, however. We’re now learning that the hastily rushed through bill and the flood of people applying for benefits left the door open for scammers and identity thieves to tap into the system and falsely claim benefits to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The first epicenter of this massive scheme was detected in Washington State, but it quickly spread to others. (Associated Press)

It turned out that, like thousands of Washington state residents, [Dayna] Lurie’s identity was used by criminals seeking to capitalize on a flood of legitimate unemployment claims by sneaking in fraudulent ones.

Washington’s race to help newly laid-off residents as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the economy left it vulnerable to such scams, and last week officials hinted at the scope of the damage done: hundreds of millions of dollars paid out in fake claims. Much of it apparently went to a West African fraud ring using identities stolen in prior data breaches, such as the massive 2017 Equifax breach.

State and federal authorities have tried to claw back as much money as possible and say they have blocked hundreds of millions more from being paid out, but Washington’s experience is nevertheless a cautionary tale.

(Read more from “Massive Unemployment Fraud Uncovered in Numerous States” HERE)

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Lawmakers Eye Reforms to $600 Unemployment Benefit in Bid to Save Jobs

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Lawmakers are eyeing changes to the $600 payment boost to unemployment benefits to alleviate the incentives leading some workers to choose to remain jobless.

Adding to the urgency is that business owners with granted Paycheck Protection Program loans are having a hard time rehiring furloughed workers because of the unemployment benefit. Yet, if they cannot get those workers back, they risk the loan not being forgiven.

Lawmakers hope to address the problem, which stems from the fact that the increased benefits mean that many people would lose money by working, either by reducing the payment or providing workers with a bonus for staying on the job.

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney from Utah went the bonus route. He has proposed “Patriot Pay,” which would provide essential workers earning less than $50,000 a temporary bonus of up to $12 per hour for May, June, and July, which are the remaining months of the $600 payment if unemployment benefits are not extended.

“Healthcare professionals, grocery store workers, food processors, and many others — the unsung patriots on the front line of this pandemic — every day risk their safety for the health and well-being of our country, and they deserve our unwavering support,” the senator said when announcing his proposal. (Read more from “Lawmakers Eye Reforms to $600 Unemployment Benefit in Bid to Save Jobs” HERE)

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White House Economic Adviser: Unemployment Numbers Will Get Worse; Fraudsters Are Faking Unemployment Claims

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By Newsweek. Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow said on Friday that unemployment numbers would continue to get worse as the U.S. reported its highest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression.

“The economic and jobs numbers are going to continue to deteriorate,” Kudlow said during an interview with Fox Business.

Kudlow was addressing the latest unemployment numbers for April released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs last month, the BLS said in its report. The number stands in sharp contrast to the Great Recession of 2008, when from January 2008 to February 2010, 8.8 million people lost their jobs.

“I don’t know if it’s as bad as it gets,” Kudlow said. “I don’t think this pandemic contraction has yet fully run its course.” (Read more from “White House Economic Adviser: Unemployment Numbers Will Get Worse” HERE)

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Fraudsters Are Faking Washington Unemployment Claims Amid Coronavirus Joblessness Surge

By The Seattle Times. When Brian Slish opened his mail recently at his home in Samammish, he was surprised to find a letter from Washington state, saying his claim for unemployment benefits was under review.

Millions of Americans have abruptly lost their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic’s economic shutdown, but Slish is not one of them. As general manager of Honda of Kirkland, he’s continued working, as the car dealership’s service department was considered an essential business under Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-home order.

Slish says he’s alarmed someone apparently filed for unemployment in his name, using personal information to submit a claim to the state Employment Security Department (ESD) on April 19. He said similar false claims were filed in the names of his wife and two coworkers — all still employed. . .

His story is not isolated. As Washington grapples with a tsunami of legitimate unemployment claims — more than 100,000 last week — the state also is seeing a rise in attempts by fraudsters to siphon off a portion of the benefits. Such phony claims have been submitted in the names of workers at school districts, nonprofits, the local chamber of commerce and The Seattle Times, among others. (Read more from “Fraudsters Are Faking Washington Unemployment Claims Amid Coronavirus Joblessness Surge” HERE)

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More Than 400,000 Jobs Available as Coronavirus Prods People to Stock up on Necessities and Order Takeout

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By Washington Examiner. The outbreak of the coronavirus across the United States has shuttered whole industries. Still, demand for essentials, such as food, toilet paper, and even pizza delivery, has increased hiring by over 400,000 jobs as people shelter in their homes and stock up on necessities.

Walmart, the largest employer in the U.S., wants to hire an additional 150,000 temporary workers by the end of May to meet the increase in demand at its stores. However, those temporary jobs could become permanent. , ,

The company will also implement a new process to expedite hiring dramatically for critical roles, such as cashiers and stockers. What is usually a two-week application cycle will be reduced to a 24-hour process.

Walmart looks to hire people who have been recently laid off because of the pandemic, said its president and CEO, Doug McMillon. . .

Amazon seeks to hire an additional 100,000 full- and part-time workers to keep up with e-commerce demand. It plans to invest over $350 million worldwide, which would include pay increases of $2 per hour for U.S. employees who work in its fulfillment centers, transportation operations, or stores, or those making deliveries so that others can remain at home. (Read more from “More Than 400,000 Jobs Available as Coronavirus Prods People to Stock up on Necessities and Order Takeout” HERE)

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Coronavirus Job Losses Hit These States the Hardest, According to Record Unemployment Claims

By Yahoo. The impact of the economic shutdown in the U.S. caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was revealed Thursday when the latest tally of Americans applying for unemployment benefits spiked to 3.28 million — the largest number ever recorded in history.

That weekly number quadruples the prior record and dwarfs, by far, the largest halt to employment seen during the 2008 financial crisis. Single weekly jobless claim numbers never topped 700,000, until now.

But digging further into the disastrous 3.28 million headline number reveals a slowdown that hit some states harder than others, and reveals why President Trump might be so eager to see businesses reopen in some communities sooner rather than later.

Key swing states, which Trump won by the slimmest margins in 2016, showed some of the largest percentage increases in unemployment applications for the week ending March 21. Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania each reported a jump in weekly unemployment applications that surpassed 2,300%.

On a percentage basis, New Hampshire suffered the worst spike in unemployment claims, up more than 3,300% from just 641 claims the week prior to top 21,000 weekly claims at last clip. Conversely, Utah, which hasn’t been hit with as many reported cases of coronavirus as other states, only saw jobless claims rise by less than 1%. (Read more from “Coronavirus Job Losses Hit These States the Hardest, According to Record Unemployment Claims” HERE)

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Economists Warn Jobless Claims Could Top 1.5 Million by Next Week

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By The Hill. U.S. unemployment claims could reach a record 1.5 million by next week as service industry workers are forced to stay home amid the coronavirus outbreak, economists warned Thursday.

The U.S. Labor Department reported that 281,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits the week of March 14 — a 70,000 jump from the week before, and 60,000 claims more than economists had expected.

“State filings offices for Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut report claims filings this week are running six to 14 times higher than the same week last year,” Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital in New York, told Reuters. (Read more from “Economists Warn Jobless Claims Could Top 1.5 Million by Next Week” HERE)

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Washington Scrambles to Prevent Massive Unemployment Spike

By The Hill. The coronavirus is quickly taking a sledgehammer to the historically low unemployment rates that have defined much of President Trump’s time in office.

The pandemic’s toll on the economy is now a key focus of Washington’s response to the growing public health crisis, with Congress and the White House scrambling to provide relief for struggling workers and businesses.

“It’s going to be a big problem,” said Jay Shambaugh, director of the Hamilton Project and a senior economics fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Unemployment is going to be where we see the economic damage, and is rising, frankly, faster than we expected just a week or two ago.”

Restaurants and bars have already initiated severe staff cutbacks, with similar actions underway in the travel and entertainment industries, leading to widespread layoffs at companies large and small. (Read more from “Washington Scrambles to Prevent Massive Unemployment Spike” HERE)

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Democrats Aren’t Going to Like Trump’s New Job Growth and Unemployment Numbers

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America’s strong job growth is surprising even the experts. They predicted that there would be 175,000 new jobs in February. Instead, the economy created 273,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent.

What’s more, December and January’s job numbers were adjusted upward by 243,000. And if you can stand it, here’s more.

CNBC:

The previous two months’ estimates were revised higher by a total of 85,000. December moved up from 147,000 to 184,000, while January went from 225,000 to 273,000. Those revisions brought the three-month average up to a robust 243,000 while the average monthly gain in 2019 was 178,000.

But before you pop the champagne corks and celebrate Trump’s re-election, there are storm clouds on the horizon. It looks like we’re in for some rough weather.

“While it’s too early to see the impact of the coronavirus on the labor market, we can say the labor market was in a good place before the virus began to spread,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director at job placement firm Indeed. “But the next few months will be a test of just how resilient this labor market is.”

(Read more from “Democrats Aren’t Going to Like Trump’s New Job Growth and Unemployment Numbers” HERE)

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Unemployment Hits All-Time Low for Blacks

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The number of people employed in the United States hit a record 157,878,000 in August, the 21st record set under President Donald Trump, according to the employment report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. . .

The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent. For blacks, the unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 5.5 percent last month. And for Hispanics, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in August, which ties the record low set earlier this year.

In August, the civilian noninstitutional population in the United States was 259,432,000. That included all people 16 and older who did not live in an institution (such as a prison, nursing home or long-term care hospital). Of that civilian noninstutional population, 163,922,000 were in the labor force, meaning that they either had a job or were actively seeking one during the last month.

That boosted the labor force participation rate to 63.2 percent, which matches the Trump-era high set this past January and February. That’s a 0.2 percent gain from the 63.0 percent in July. . .

Among the major worker groups, BLS said, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.4 percent), adult women (3.3 percent), teenagers (12.6 percent), Whites (3.4 percent), Blacks (5.5 percent), Asians (2.8 percent), and Hispanics (4.2 percent) showed little or no change in August, although — as noted above — it’s never been better for blacks and Hispanics. (Read more from “Unemployment Hits All-Time Low for Blacks” HERE)

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James Woods Celebrates Trump’s Economy With Hilarious Anti-Obama Meme

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The unemployment level may be at an 18-year low, but it’s not exactly like the Democrats are giving the president or Republican-controlled Congress any credit for it. If anything, they’re downplaying it. . .

So, what did conservative actor and Twitter legend James Woods do? Well, first he attacked Pelosi and the Democrats, who he said were following a “strategy … based on welfare, illegal immigration, and taxing those who work and create.”

And then, he reminded Twitter users about what the past administration said about jobs — with a not-safe-for-work meme.

[Warning: explicit language used in tweet image.]

Woods was referring to remarks Obama made during a town hall-style meeting during the 2016 campaign in Elkhart, Indiana.

During the meeting, one worker said, in reference to the Carrier plant job losses, that Obama was “doing a lot of things, but in Indianapolis, there’s nothing there for us.” (Read more from “James Woods Celebrates Trump’s Economy With Hilarious Anti-Obama Meme” HERE)

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Black Unemployment Rate Hits Historic Low

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In the month of December, the unemployment rate for black Americans dropped to just 6.8 percent, which is the lowest ever recorded. Prior to this month, the previous record was 7.4 percent in 2000.
The government has been tracking unemployment by race for 45 years, since 1972.

The Hispanic unemployment rate remains at a near record low of just 4.9 percent, up just a bit from the record of 4.7 percent in November of last year.

White unemployment sits at 3.7 percent, while only 2.5 percent of Asians are unemployed . . .

The number of jobs created in December was 148,000, which is lower than expected. Jobs are the lagging indicator in any economy, so with all the other numbers moving up, hopefully job creation will soon follow. (Read more from “Black Unemployment Rate Hits Historic Low” HERE)

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GRIM MILESTONE: More Than 100 Million Working-Age Americans Do Not Have Jobs

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This is exactly what we have been expecting to happen. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. economy only added 38,000 jobs in May. This was way below the 158,000 jobs that analysts were projecting, and it is also way below what is needed just to keep up with population growth. In addition, the number of jobs created in April was revised down by 37,000 and the number of jobs created in March was revised down by 22,000. This was the worst jobs report in almost six years, and the consensus on Wall Street is that it was an unmitigated disaster.

The funny thing is that the Obama administration says that the unemployment rate actually went down last month. Almost every month since Obama has been in the White House, large numbers of Americans that have been unemployed for a very long time are shifted from the “unemployment” category to the “not in the labor force” category. This has resulted in a steadily falling “unemployment rate” even though the percentage of the population that is actually working has not changed very much at all since the depths of the last recession.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that the number of Americans “not in the labor force” increased by 664,000 from April to May. If you believe that, I have a giant bridge on the west coast that I would like to sell you. The labor force participation rate is now down to 62.6, and it is hovering just above a 38 year low.

When you add the number of working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” (7.4 million) to the number of working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force” (an all-time record high of 94.7 million), you get a grand total of 102.1 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

This is not a game.

So far in 2016, three members of my own extended family have lost their jobs.

According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, layoffs at major firms are running 24 percent higher up to this point in 2016 than they were during the same time period in 2015.

It was only a matter of time before those layoffs started showing up in the official employment numbers, and I fully expect that this trend will accelerate in the months ahead.

And here are some other brand new numbers for you to consider…

-Since Barack Obama entered the White House, 14,179,000 Americans have “left the labor force” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

-The quality of our jobs continues to deteriorate. In May, 59,000 full-time jobs were lost, but 118,000 part-time jobs were gained.

-Since September 2014, 207,000 mining jobs have been lost.

-We just learned that U.S. factory orders have declined once again. This marks the 18th month in a row that this has taken place, and we have never seen such an extended decline outside of a major recession.

-JPMorgan’s “recession indicators” have just soared to the highest level that we have seen since the last recession.

Needless to say, the financial community is pretty horrified by all of this news. They were expecting a much better jobs report, and many of them are not hiding their disappointment. Here is one example from the Wall Street Journal…

“This was an unqualified dud of a jobs report,” said Curt Long, chief economist at the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, noting “the unemployment rate fell, but for the wrong reason as labor force participation declined for the second consecutive month.”

And here is another example that comes from David Donabedian, the chief investment officer at Atlantic Trust Wealth Management…

“We can’t find a positive nugget in today’s job report. If we were looking for signs of strength in this report, there is nothing to hang onto here.”

But of course the mainstream media is doing their best to put a positive spin on these numbers. For instance, CNN just published a laughable article entitled “America’s economy is stronger than weak jobs report“.

And the White House insists that this new employment report really isn’t that big of a deal…

The White House doesn’t get “too disappointed” over the number of unemployed and underemployed Americans.

“I’ve been reacting to jobs numbers here at the White House for more than seven years, and what is true today has been true in the past, which is, we don’t get too excited when jobs numbers are better than expected and we don’t get too disappointed when jobs numbers one-month are lower than expected,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told CNBC.

But of course the truth is that it is a really big deal. We just received major confirmation that the U.S. economy has slipped into recession mode.

For months, I have been writing about how virtually every other indicator has been screaming that a new economic crisis had already begun.

But the employment numbers had remained fairly decent up until now. Employment is typically considered to be a “lagging indicator”, which means that it isn’t one of the first places we would expect to see signs of a recession show up. However, it is inevitable that the official unemployment numbers will reflect an economic downturn eventually, and that is what we are starting to see now.

What this means is that you probably have even less time to get prepared for what is ahead than you may have originally thought.

The U.S. economy has already entered the early chapters of the next great economic crisis, and most of the population is going to be caught totally off guard and will suffer tremendously.

If our leaders had made better decisions since the last crisis, things could have turned out differently. But instead, they continued to conduct business as usual, and now we will reap what they have sown. (For more from the author of “GRIM MILESTONE: More Than 100 Million Working-Age Americans Do Not Have Jobs” please click HERE)

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