The Labor Department (DoL) estimated this week that the overpayment rate for its Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program reached 17 percent between March 2020 and September 2021 as the coronavirus pandemic gripped the nation.

The Department of Labor’s (DoL) Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that the agency – along with state workforce agencies – has paid more than $45 billion in unemployment insurance (UI) pandemic benefits to fraudsters, according to an alert memorandum published on Sept. 21.