May 10, 2023

U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Representative,

            You will soon be considering H.R. 1163, the Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act.  On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge you to support this legislation.

            H.R. 1163 provides solutions to help prevent unemployment insurance (UI) fraud, which has occurred for many years and became widespread after the massive expansion of UI benefits at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Estimates of the total amount stolen from UI benefits range from $197 billion to $400 billion.  H.R. 1163 provides incentives for states to track down and recover fraudulent unemployment payments and allows the states to retain 25 percent of the total funds that are recovered.  These funds could then be used by the states to improve UI systems and program integrity to help prevent future fraud.  As noted in the House Ways and Means Committee report on H.R. 1163, “UI fraud was not a victimless crime.  Unchecked fraud delayed payments and diverted funding away from unemployed workers who truly needed the benefit during the economic downturn.”  The bill also extends the statute of limitations for prosecuting fraud from 5 years to 10 years. 

            The money stolen from UI payments during the COVID-19 pandemic has been called by some as the greatest theft of taxpayer dollars in history.  H.R. 1163 provides commonsense solutions that give states more incentives to recover stolen taxpayer dollars and fix their UI systems, as well as giving the federal government more power to stop similar theft in the future.  For these reasons, I urge you to support H.R. 1163.  All votes related to H.R. 1163 may be among those considered for CCAGW’s 2023 Congressional Ratings. 

Sincerely, 

Tom Schatz 
President, CCAGW 

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