Between April-August 2013, 98 Pennsylvania welfare recipients were adjudicated guilty of welfare fraud.
The Department of Public Welfare (DPW) indicates less than one percent of welfare recipients commit fraud. That figure may be accurate, but how much taxpayer money was involved with these 98 welfare cases?
These thieves collected illegal benefits from food stamps, cash assistance, childcare, energy (LIHEAP) and medical coverage. In April, 25 defendants stole $113,400; in May, 17 defendants stole $66,000; in June, 18 defendants stole $87,300; in July, 16 defendants stole $62,500 and in August, 22 defendants stole $172,600. In all that's $501,350 of taxpayer money.
DPW also indicated finding another 653 cases of people who were not residents of Pennsylvania collecting benefits and “that it was not clear how long they were defrauding the state or how much (benefits) were received improperly.”
More effective anti-fraud measures need to be implemented and aggressively enforced. Pennsylvania should be combating fraud attempts before they happen.
JOHN MACKLEY, Elizabethtown