At least $191 billion in pandemic unemployment benefits may have been misspent, the U.S. Department of Labor’s inspector general told a congressional committee.

Testifying before the House Committee on Ways and Means, Larry D. Turner said that a “significant portion” of those improper payments were attributable to fraud.

The federal unemployment insurance (UI) program was expanded under the CARES Act of 2020. It added an extra $600 weekly benefit and broadened eligibility for those who would otherwise not qualify for benefits.

The “unprecedented infusion of federal funds into the UI program gave individuals and organized criminal groups a high-value target to exploit,” Turner testified.

Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) called the missing billions “the greatest theft of taxpayer dollars in American history” in his opening statement.

Federal officials told the House Oversight and Accountability Committee last week that more than $5 billion in federal pandemic relief loans and grants to small businesses were stolen.

One of those officials, U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, testified that the Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s December 2022 estimate of $60 billion in fraudulent UI payments made during the pandemic “may be substantially higher” than that.

President Biden addressed this issue in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

“Now, let’s triple our anti-fraud strike forces going after these criminals, double the statute of limitations on these crimes, and crack down on identity fraud by criminal syndicates stealing billions of dollars from the American people,” he said, the Washington Post reported.  “For every dollar we put into fighting fraud, taxpayers get back at least ten times as much.”

Individual State Workforce Agencies (SWAs), which are responsible for administering UI programs in their respective states, struggled to cope with the surge of claims, Michael Horowitz, chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), testified. The difficulty in processing of all of these claims was compounded by weak internal controls that compromised eligibility verifications, as well as outdated IT systems, he said.  

These factors “enabled criminals to defraud the programs,” he said.