Jobless Aid Stalls in States as Pressure Mounts to Prevent Fraud

The massive surge in unemployment along with a spike in benefits fraud schemes are straining states’ ability to strike a balance between speed and accuracy to get checks to millions of newly laid-off workers.

More than 40 million Americans filed initial jobless claims since mid-March, a trend criminal fraudsters have seized on by targeting overwhelmed unemployment systems from Washington state to Maine. As a result, states struggle to police fraud without substantially delaying the payment of valid claims.

“I don’t think that there’s any doubt that those two things are in conflict, so sure, the spike in claims does stress ...