2022 Government Fraud, Waste, & Abuse Report

Now in its third year, the Thomson Reuters 2022 Government Fraud, Waste, & Abuse Report is the most comprehensive survey available on the ability of state and local governments to prevent, detect, and investigate fraud-related activity. In the report, state and local government employees are asked to candidly assess how well prepared they are to meet their job challenges in terms of tools, resources, staffing, and time — now and in the future.

This year’s survey was conducted in Spring 2022, as the country emerges from two years of pandemic-related disruption and an unprecedented spike in fraudulent activity that primarily targeted federally funded pandemic relief programs such as expanded unemployment benefits and the Paycheck Protection Program.

Survey respondents were state and local government supervisors, investigators, analysts, and other officials, all of whom regularly use public records and other risk and fraud detection solutions as part of their job. All of the respondents have first-hand experience in the never-ending fight to protect public programs from criminals intent on exploiting and defrauding the system in any way they can.

Some of the questions this year’s survey addresses are:

• How has the pandemic made fraud prevention more difficult?
• What are the most common types of fraud that governments are seeing now?
• What new tactics are criminals employing to exploit vulnerabilities in the system?
• What role does technology play in combatting — and committing — fraud?
• Do government agencies have the tools and resources they need to protect public programs?
• What tools and methods do investigators use to detect fraudulent activity?
• What are the most pressing challenges governments face in combatting fraud?
• What are government agencies doing to meet these challenges?

To find out the answers to these and other questions about the issues state and local governments face when it comes to protecting public programs from fraudsters, download a copy of the 2022 Fraud, Waste & Abuse Report below: