The article says the US Department of Labor, working with a White House task force focused on fraud, has sent a strike team to New York to investigate and recover large sums lost through unemployment benefit fraud. According to the report, officials argue that the scale of the problem is unusually severe and say it matters because it represents a major loss of public money that should be protected for legitimate claimants and taxpayers.

The key figure highlighted is an estimated loss of nearly $2 million a day in New York through fraud and improper payments, with the article saying this amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars overall. It quotes Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito, who describes the state’s fraud and improper payment rates as unprecedented, while also noting that New York is cooperating with the federal review. The piece places New York alongside California as one of the states with particularly high levels of improper payments in the unemployment system.