>>>>What I'm asking you and others for is some real evidence, not anecdotes, that the number of people who are abusing the welfare system is a significant percentage of the number of people receiving assistance. Of course, there are some cheats (as there are in pretty much any system), but the question is whether they are a large enough subset as to render the whole program invalid.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/fraud/PG270.htm
>>>
>>>Just in California for 2007-2008.
>>
>>Still anecdotes. How about offering numbers? percentages?
>>
>>Frankly, if that's all California has for 2007-08, even if we acknowledge that it's only the ones they caught, it's a pretty small set. How many people live in California? How many receive welfare?
>>
>>Tamar
>
>Are you well?
>Did you even read the article?

What article? The link you posted is titled "Welfare Fraud Stories" and documents about a dozen specific episodes. Maybe that wasn't the link you meant to post?

>California has big financial probelms and that all you can say? You think these are small numbers?
>
>"While exact figures are difficult to tally, experts estimate as much as $300 billion a year is lost to health care fraud in the United States "
>
>"$34 billion annually to provide care for about 7 million indigent Californians - with about $3 billion of that lost to fraud, experts say.."

Okay, now I see this there. Since the page appeared to be just anecdotes, I skimmed it originally. Of course, even this item just quotes unnamed "experts." It'd be nice to know who they are and where they came up with that number.

Yeah, 10% of expenditure in fraud is on the high side. It still doesn't answer the question as to what percent of _recipients_ are cheating, which was the question I asked.

It also says most of the fraud is organized crime, not the so-called "no-hopers" we've been talking about in this thread. I'm in favor of going after organized crime aggressively.

Tamar