Talk:Welfare fraud/Archive 1

Merge proposal - Welfare Queen
This should be merged with the welfare queen

I removed statements made by Qworty (banned editor) here.


 * The idea of the "welfare queen" is a highly politicized and distinct concept in that use its use is often gendered and racially charged. An entry on welfare fraud should highlight cases of actual abuse. "Welfare queen" has a different social connotation. Njfuller (talk) 05:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge tag was removed. Njfuller (talk) 01:03, 4

A worry statements removed here.

Welfare fraud includes not only fraud perpetrated by clients, but fraud perpetrated by providers and vendors. Like the 73 Million dollar Welfare Fraud settlement paid by Beth Israel Medical Center in 2005. Hospitals have been implicated in a wide variety of Medicaid fraud and abuse, ranging from inaccurate billing, to errors or falsifications in cost reports, to billing Medicaid before all other coverage has been exhausted.
 * wiki newbie mnaking first comment***

To focus solely on the fraction of welfare fraud perpetrated by clients merely contributes to incorrect stereotypes of all welfare recipients as cheaters and sponges. --NetizenJ 71.123.26.149 (talk) 15:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

This is a good point. I agree that this should be included in the article. Xhile (talk) 22:36, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Example of welfare fraud
This example of fraud, with the 'mother of four or five' is very poor considering all the documented abuses that are available. This example gives the impression that any mother with four or five children is (a)receiving public assistance and (b) committing fraud by doing so. The same could be said of any corporation that takes advantage of tax-loopholes to avoid paying taxes. Using the rules to ones favor, in this example, having a large number of children, is not inherently fraudulent. An argument could be made that it is going against the spirit of the purpose of public assistance, but that's about it.

The myth of the welfare queen and the rampant abuses of the system have been shown to be largely nonexistent with the exception of a very small percentage of abusers. This topic should be related to other entries that reference political hyperbole, especially during election cycles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.15.228.244 (talk) 01:17, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge tag
I've been working on the welfare queen article and noticed that the merge tag was added nearly a year ago by a "Retired user". There's been little discussion since that time, and unless people object, I plan on taking the tag down. I'll give it a couple weeks, so voice any concerns if there are any out there. Njfuller (talk) 22:33, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge tag removed. Njfuller (talk) 01:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Accurate Statistics
I've been researching statistics on US welfare fraud. Accurate statistics are surprisingly difficult to find, and most of the opinion on the web is hearsay, and dare I say it, bigotry.

69% ?
I found this quote:

Edit: Testimony before House Ways & Means Committee CHILD CARE FRAUD - July 17, 2003 (with follow-up) [Back]

Statement of Michael G. Rice, President, United Council on Welfare Fraud "Fraud and Abuse in Government Child Care Assistance Programs"

Chairman Thomas, Congressman Rangel, members of the committee: On behalf of the United Council on Welfare Fraud, I wish to express my gratitude for the invitation to provide written and oral testimony for you today and for your concerns on the topic of welfare fraud and abuse, particularly in the area of child care assistance.

About the United Council on Welfare Fraud and the information provided today: For 32 years the major goal of the United Council on Welfare Fraud (UCOWF) has been to provide maximum effort towards the prevention, detection, elimination and prosecution of welfare fraud in its many forms and to effect recovery of taxpayer monies lost through waste, fraud and abuse in government programs designed to aid the needy. UCOWF’s membership currently consists of welfare investigators, administrators, and recovery specialists, as well as fraud prosecutors from 47 states, the District of Columbia and 7 Canadian provinces, establishing a network from Hawaii to Newfoundland.

Eighteen states had not been keeping statistics on child care fraud, but of them, several responded that the local county agencies administering the services did maintained fraud databases. In those states that did maintain detailed statistics, fraud was discovered in upwards of 69 percent of the investigations conducted with total annual discovered fraud amounts ranging from $10,000 to over $1 million.

The original link to this testimony is now broken.

HOWEVER http://www.ucowf.org/ is a private profit-making organisation. It is in their interests to inflate fraud figures and therefore I find it highly unlikely that their figure of "69%" is accurate. It might be possible to locate the full transcript and see if this figure was challenged.
 * The 69% figure (not currently cited under this topic) refers only to welfare cases that were suspected of fraud and then investigated for it. It is unrelated to the overall rate of fraud.OriginalVirtue (talk) 08:22, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

YES THIS IS BEING SERIOUSLY MISINTERPRETED. when they say t hat 69 percent, they are only talking about 69 percent OF THE CASES THAT WERE INVESTIGATED. It does NOT mean 69 percent of welfare or childcare recipients! ONLY the cases they chose to investigate: of those, 69 percent proved to have some form of fraud, of any amount. Do you see? people on here and elsewhere, are not catching that distinction. THEY AREN'T INVESTIGATING VERY MANY RECIPIENTS. Just a small number. So of that number, it is just over half those suspected, who actually did any form of it. ok? it's really life threatening when millions of people see something like a false figure in wikipedia, shared around social media, and get mad and demand cuts in services for the poor. Meat Eating Orchid (talk) 15:48, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

24% ?
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/article_98889d8a-ed01-11df-a47b-001cc4c03286.html Investigates a claim for a much lower figure of 24% It's a good investigation and makes it clear that this report is inaccurate as the distinction is not made between a "discrepancy" (caused, say, by poor English) and outright fraud. So far this is the best figure I've been able to find which indicates that welfare fraud is probably less than 20%. However, I would say this is not good enough for Wikipedia?

It might be worth going through the House Ways and Means hearings but I haven't had time yet http://waysandmeans.house.gov/Hearings/

Some general welfare stats http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2009/6a.html (but nothing on fraud)

Less than 2% ?
The most accurate figure I've yet found is from a House Ways and Means report: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/humres/107con/6-11-02/6-11find.htm

This is the figure I'll use in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xhile (talk • contribs) 00:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The way this link is cited could mislead the reader into thinking the 2% referred to the overall welfare program instead of just unemployment insurance. At a minimum, for clarity, "UI" should be spelled out. The information in this link is juxtaposed with the disputed 24% number originally from the Los Angeles Times, but the 24% does appear to refer to Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which is what is normally considered to be the "welfare" program. OriginalVirtue (talk) 08:16, 14 February 2012 (UTC)