SACRAMENTO –Today, Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (Yuba City) issued a statement after an oversight hearing was held to evaluate the Employment Development Department’s (EDD) responsibility for paying out nearly $20 billion in fraudulent claims during the pandemic. However, there are new claims that this figure could be much closer to $32 billion when accounting for current ongoing scams.

“The EDD catastrophe cost our state a fortune and eroded people’s trust with their money. As usual, Governor Newsom promised to fix this problem and has done nothing. We are actually learning that the problem is worse than we previously thought. Capitol Democrats cannot be trusted to manage our money or our government.”

###