Analysis shows California EDD fraud really at $32.6 billion and counting

In the fall of 2021, during an oversight hearing of California's Employment Development Department, or EDD, the department was asked by Assm. Cottie Petrie-Norris whether the department had a new estimated amount of money the state had paid out in fraud. "Of the $170 billion That was paid out, "$20 billion is estimated to be fraudulent," then-EDD-director Rita Saenz said via Zoom. The department has consistently said to KCRA 3, both during our multiple chapters in our documentary "Easy Money: Fraud, Fortune and Failures" and in subsequent stories, that the fraud figure was money paid out to Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a federal program that has since ended.