Maryland is under public pressure after a state audit and a series of federal indictments exposed widespread fraud in its unemployment program.
Maryland has paid out close to a billion dollars in unemployment overpayments over the past five years to individuals who were not eligible to receive them, a damning audit of the Maryland Department of Labor has found, much of which has yet to be recovered. At the same time, federal prosecutors are continuing to bring cases tied to identity theft and pandemic-era fraud within the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) program.
Republican lawmakers say the scope of the problem has been clear for years and argue that the state government under Democratic Gov. Wes Moore has not moved aggressively to address it.
“We have a department that has over $800 million in outstanding receivables, including fraud, but getting that money back didn’t appear to be a focus for the Department of Labor,” Republican state Sen. Steven Arentz said.
