Doge, a social network usually associated with billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has recently stirred the pot. Today, the platform is embroiled in grave accusations of fraud related to unemployment benefits. Just last week, Musk’s new agency went to Doge and described it as his “department of government efficiency.” He shared what he called alarming results from an “early survey” that Doge ran on the U.S. unemployment benefits system.
Neither Doge nor Musk acknowledged the survey on the record. That leaves a big credibility gap on the claims. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General is responsible for auditing state unemployment benefit systems, and its data appears to have been the source for Doge’s assertions. In 2023, the office found over $11 million in suspected fraud. They discovered that people over 100 years old and under 14 years old were claiming unemployment insurance.
Doge’s allegations upheld those discoveries. He shared stories of claimants who were already deceased, aged one to five years or unborn. One of the most remarkable instances was a person born in 2154. According to the Assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case, this man fraudulently obtained $41,000 in unemployment compensation.
Despite the bombastic roll out of these claims, experts have warned the public to take Doge’s assertions with a grain of salt. Amy Traub, formerly senior researcher for social insurance at the National Employment Law Project, urged everyone to use healthy skepticism in determining the value of any information spread by Doge.
“Going back in 2020 to say there was a lot of fraud – that’s the definition of old news.” – Andrew Stettner
It’s not the first time that fraudulent claims have been an issue, said Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. He underlined that the Department of Labor is doing something about these risks. To advance the solution, they’ve put in place more cross-checks to find, flag and reject the false claims. A recent memo from the Department of Labor proved Doge right. These concerns stemmed from provisions enacted to protect victims of identity theft and standing fraud schemes from being penalized and losing access to critical benefits unfairly.
“Rather, this was the result of how the state ensured victims of fraud were not unfairly prevented from accessing benefits,” – Department of Labor memo
Musk’s comments certainly provided a logistically sweetener sensational flair to the developing story. He highlighted the ridiculousness of spending tax dollars on these false claims. None of these claims were made by actual people; however, they were supposedly born in the future.
“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” – Elon Musk
Experts, such as Elizabeth Pancotti, expressed alarm about Musk’s depiction of the landscape. She noted the people at the federal agencies have deep institutional knowledge about implementing these programs.
“For the most part, he and his gaggle of 20-year-olds are going to these federal agencies of staff who have been there for five, 10, 15, 20 years working on these programs,” – Elizabeth Pancotti
Pancotti’s take was that yes, there are problems with the unemployment system, but they have been worked on. She went on to say that she’s “confident that…for the most part, these programs are working as intended.”
Critics contend that Musk and Doge are both misrepresenting the unemployment system when they claim it is really broken. They argue that this picture misses the nuanced challenges these programs are dealing with. Stettner stressed that concerns about fraud had already been raised by government watchdog agencies before Doge made his claims.
“They’re coming up like they uncovered something brand-new,” – Andrew Stettner