The federal government overpaid for unemployment insurance benefits by more than $1.6 billon in 2016, according to a new report.
The Washington Free Beacon cited a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit that found there was a significant overpayment amount on the books during fiscal year 2016, which ended June 30, 2016.
The audit discovered that the payments were sent to people who had been given formal warnings for not fulfilling the requirements to receive benefits, a list that includes looking for and applying for jobs and visiting job fairs.
A Department of Labor "analysis further shows that if formal warning cases had been included in DOL's calculation of the overpayment rates for fiscal year 2016, the nationwide overpayment rate would have increased by about 5 percentage points, from an estimated 11.1 percent to an estimated 16.3 percent," the GAO report reads.
A chart included in the report shows that several states' overpayment rates could be higher than 20 percent when factoring in cases in which a formal notice was issued.
Topping the list is Nevada (54.22 percent), followed by Pennsylvania (50.88) and Colorado (46.8).
As of November, the nationwide unemployment rate was 4.1 percent.
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