This Thursday, Congress will hold a hearing for President Biden’s nominee for U.S. Secretary of Labor, Julie Su. This controversial candidate has Washington in an uproar as her record serving as the top labor official in California was concerning, at best.
The defining mark of Su’s time as California Labor Secretary was overseeing the largest unemployment fraud in the state’s history.
During her tenure, the Employment Development Department paid nearly $40 billion – yes, Billion with a B – in fraudulent claims. As a cherry on top, over $1 billion of those fraudulent claims were sent to prison inmates. That’s a thousand-dollar bill for every person in California left for taxpayers to cover. And to make matters worse, this disaster even led to the personal information of hundreds of thousands of Californians, including social security numbers, being sent to the wrong addresses.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment insurance was a critical lifeline for millions of Californians forced out of work. But Su’s failure in leadership left over 6 million hardworking Californians without unemployment insurance when they needed it most.
This is hardly a good record, but even more damning is her handling of the fiasco. Shortly after her appointment in California, a state auditor warned her department of serious shortcomings and security risks in their mailing system that needed to be addressed. The audit even went on to say “EDD had no comprehensive plan for how it would respond if California experienced a recession and UI claims increased correspondingly.”