Yes it is, and that's the point

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And:

$5B in ‘questionable’ rental assistance under Biden revealed — including to thousands of ‘deceased tenants’ and non-citizens: HUD report

Published Dec. 30, 2025, 6:00 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — A US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report found more than $5 billion in taxpayer funds went to “questionable” rental assistance recipients during the final year of the Biden administration — including to around 30,000 “deceased tenants” and “thousands” of potential non-citizens, The Post can reveal.

HUD officials said a “large concentration” of the suspicious payments went to New York, California and Washington, DC, with dead recipients getting at least some funds in all 50 states — in what federal officials are calling widespread abuse of taxpayers’ dollars under the Biden administration.

And:

NPR: Oct. 18 2022: Pandemic-related fraud totaled billions. California is trying to get some of it back

$22 billion conservative estimate, but …

Outside experts think the real jobless fraud figure in California is far higher than $20 billion.

"I believe the number is closer to 32.6 billion," Haywood Talcove, CEO of the government division of LexisNexis Risk Solutions says.

Talcove gets to that higher figure, in part, by looking at federal Labor Department audits that show California averaged a high jobless fraud and "improper payments" rate in the three years before the pandemic. "And it didn't go down during the pandemic, it only went up," Talcove says. "So you easily get to that $32.6 billion number."

Indeed, the latest U.S. Labor Department audit report in September shows that the California EDD's "improper payment" rate in just the first six months of the pandemic was 36.6%. What percentage of that was outright fraud or mistakes is unclear but most believe the majority was the former.

Nationally, the total amount of unemployment insurance fraud is staggering. The U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General earlier this year told Congress that "at least $163 billion in pandemic UI benefits could have been paid improperly, with a significant portion attributable to fraud."

The emphasis from federal and state officials was on pushing that money out fast — $5 trillion in all to help ease the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. That speediness also meant many claims weren't verified.

That’s just fraud. Then you get to pure waste: a few trillion here, a few trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

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