Thousands of Californians in Legal Battles over Pandemic Unemployment Benefits

KQED's Forum · May 23, 2023 · 55m

“A multi-billion-dollar debacle three years in the making” is how CalMatters investigative reporter Lauren Hepler describes the current state of California’s unemployment benefit system. During the Covid pandemic, the already fraying system reached a backlog that affected more than 5 million workers while up to $31 billion was paid to scammers, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. At the same time, watchdogs claim the EDD wrongly denied up to a million cases and mistakenly flagged more than half of those as fraudulent. More than 150,000 Californians are currently…