CAN WE TRUST THE GOVERNMENT TO DO ANYTHING RIGHT? (SPOILER: NO.) Half of the pandemic’s unemployment money may have been stolen. “Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say. . . . Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a service that tries to prevent this kind of fraud, tells Axios that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50% of all unemployment monies might have been stolen, he says. Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimates that at least 70% of the money stolen by impostors ultimately left the country, much of it ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere.”