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Prior to the beginning of the pandemic, approximately 30 million children attending almost 100,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare institutions participated in the National School Lunch Program.

In our January Fraud Alert, we provided a targeted selection of social security numbers (SSNs) to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for verification, and they confirmed 20,404 belonged to deceased people, but dates of death were not included. To conduct further analysis, we collaborated with the Department of Treasury’s Do Not Pay (DNP) system to match these 20,404 SSNs against various death data sources to determine the date of death for each SSN-owner.

This update expands on our January 2023 Fraud Alert, which identified 69,000 questionable Social Security Numbers (SSNs) used to obtain $5.4 billion in potentially fraudulent pandemic small business loans and grants.

Recent headlines state that $191 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance was lost to fraud. Not exactly. In this Department of Labor Office of Inspector General's Congressional Testimony, around $76 billion of that is classified as fraud. The rest of those funds are referred to as improper payments.

In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) expanded the Child Tax Credit. Eligible families could claim the credit for each qualifying child when submitting their 2021 tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service issued more than 37 million Child Tax Credits totaling nearly $94 billion in 2021. Families can still submit revised tax returns to claim the credit until 2024.

The $10 billion Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) is providing financial help to homeowners who missed mortgage, home insurance, and utility bill payments after January 21, 2020. Recently, Treasury released new data on the race, gender, ethnicity, and income of the 168,016 approved applicants out of the 399,276 applicants. The quarterly reporting by the states, District of Columbia, Tribes, and U.S. Territories shows that they have obligated about 21% of the funding. These recipients have until September 30, 2026, to use all the funding to benefit homeowners.

In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act provided $28.6 billion to the Small Business Administration (SBA) for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. In November, 2022, SBA announced that it was distributing $83 million in unobligated RRF money to 169 restaurant operators who had pending RRF applications.

The American Rescue Plan provided $20 billion in State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funding (SLFRF) to assist Tribal governments, communities, businesses, and households. In November 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Tribal and Native Affairs released a report highlighting some of the 3,000 projects that Tribes have funded with SLFRF money. The projects are focusing on improving the Tribes’ health, safety, and quality of life. The report noted that more than 2.7 million individuals from 579 Tribes have benefited.

The $10 billion Homeowner Assistance Fund (HAF) is providing financial help to homeowners who missed mortgage, home insurance, and utility bill payments after January 21, 2020. Recently, Treasury released data on the race, gender, ethnicity, and income of the 94,310 approved applicants out of the 399,276 applicants. The quarterly reporting by the states, District of Columbia, Tribes, and U.S. Territories shows that they have obligated about 10% of the funding. They have until September 30, 2026, to use all the funding to benefit homeowners.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) provided $28.5 billion in Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) grants to 100,700 restaurants and similar businesses to help keep their doors open. Recipients are not required to repay the grant money as long as they spend it for approved uses no later than March 11, 2023.