Has $400 billion been stolen by street gangs to buy Cadillacs, T-bone steaks, and Obamaphones?

There should be some immediate hints that this story alleging extraordinarily large-scale UI fraud is garbage:

“Could have.” Then there’s this:

Arizona has been particularly public about the anti-fraud controls in its unemployment office.

By the numbers: Arizona has said that it saw 570,400 initial PUA claims filed in the week ending October 10, 2020. A month later, after hiring ID.me to filter new applications, that number had plunged by 99% to 6,700.

Arizona made its process for applying for UI more cumbersome and tried to exclude applicants, and we should just assume that most of the previous applications are fraudulent, despite Republican governors trying to exclude most eligible applicants from UI payments being a very well-known practice! Just great journamalism there.

Nothing else in the piece produces anything like the evidence that would be necessary to substantiate its literally incredible claims:

This isn't evidence of fraud. It just means fraud became easier. pic.twitter.com/XjOorCaNZp— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) June 17, 2021

indistinguishable from sponsored content pic.twitter.com/DCaNzTFSkJ— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) June 17, 2021

The story implies that America lost $400 billion due to unemployment fraud during the pandemic but it's not clear America even spent that much on unemployment insurance in total.
If your main source is this innumerate maybe try to confirm it elsewhere? pic.twitter.com/2xbh0LJyqY— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) June 17, 2021

Despite how little substance the piece has, it will help the efforts of the Rick Scotts of the world to deny people the benefits to which they’re entitled, so mission accomplished!