New Investigation Looks at Causes of EDD’s Pandemic Meltdown

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

California’s Employment Development Department paid out up to $30 billion in fraudulent claims during the Covid pandemic. Meanwhile, some six million Californians with legitimate claims saw their unemployment benefits delayed or improperly denied. That’s according to a new investigation by CalMatters, which found that state agencies and lawmakers were aware of red flags and security holes for years, but chose not to address them. As the fraud’s total cost – and its human toll – continue to be tallied, government agencies and private contractors point fingers at each other. We look at what caused the unprecedented failure of California’s unemployment system and how the state is proposing to fix it. Related link(s): myEDD – EDD’s new online system Bank of America’s EDD Debit Card site Find and contact your state representative Legal Aid at Work Center for Workers’ Rights State Bar of California Guests: Lauren Hepler, investigative reporter, CalMatters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Kikiweedy Podcasts comes from Rancho LaPuerta, a resort with 85 years of wellness experience.
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0:32.3	From KQED.
0:33.3	Thank you. From KGB in San Francisco, this is Forum.
0:51.9	I'm Nina Kim.
0:53.1	By now, you're probably familiar with the failures of
0:56.0	California's unemployment benefit system during the pandemic, falling victim to tens of billions of
1:01.4	dollars in rampant fraud, while leaving millions of workers who lost their jobs when COVID hit without the
1:06.9	money to cover basic needs. A new investigation by CalMatters looks at how our state's employment development department
1:14.0	came to process so many fraudulent claims and the extent of the impact of denied or
1:19.9	delayed legitimate claims on people's lives.
1:23.6	The state is now looking to spend more than a billion dollars to try and fix what went wrong.
1:28.4	We'll learn more about that after this news.
1:35.6	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
	...

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