Yesterday CNS News posted a story about $5,159,629,434 in improper unemployment insurance payments for all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia for the period July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012.

The data is included in a chart on the Department of Labor (DOL) website.

The article reports:

The DOL outlines its “core strategies to reduce improper payments” and other actions it is taking to improve performance at the state level, including providing funding to the states.  (See TOP Document.pdf )

“On Sept. 27, 2012 the Department announced the award of approximately $169 million in supplemental budget requests (SBRs) to 33 states for projects related to program integrity and performance to address their root causes most likely to quickly reduce improper payments.”

I don’t think fraud is the biggest problem with unemployment insurance. Now that unemployment benefits can be collected for more than a year, how much incentive do people have to look for work during that year? The fraud in the payments needs to be addressed, but so does the length of time benefits can be collected. I understand that the economy is not creating jobs, but does extending the amount of time people can collect money for being unemployed actually help the economy,  the unemployment rate, or those people looking for jobs.