US Labor Agency Launches California Unemployment Aid Fraud Probe

The US Labor Department is launching an investigation into unemployment insurance fraud in California and the state’s management of benefits funds.

DOL auditors determined that California is at “high risk” of allowing fraudulent unemployment benefits payments, the department said in a press release Wednesday. The DOL’s “UI strike team” will probe the state’s systems.

This is the second investigation launched against specific states’ jobless aid systems. The DOL announced a similar probe into Minnesota late last year. The department’s inspector general also recently urged agency leaders to recover nearly $1 billion in unemployment insurance funds from various financial institutions and ...