>>>>>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

Michigan is pursuing justice. It's not just the recipients who commit welfare fraud, but businesses too (see video on this page for tv media report):

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Food-Stamp-Fraud-Crackdown/1EWsT1ypGU6rnXPxDxzVCg.cspx

and the results from the State Attorney General:

More than a Half Million Dollars of Fraud Alleged
More than $100,000 Recovered in Raid

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dhs/DHS-AG-FAPFraud-NewsRelease-091908_250758_7.pdf

In general, fraud is alleged since there is seldom proof:

Each year more than $54 million worth of fraud is alleged in connection to food stamp
trafficking in the State of Michigan