Social Benefits Fraud Czech Case Study

Abstract

The battle against social security benefit fraud has become a priority in a number of countries given that expenditure on social benefits accounts for a significant portion of public expenditure as a whole. The aim of this article was to quantify irregular payments of all sixteen non-insurance social benefits paid out in the Czech Republic and to determine how they are settled and the recovery rate for the national budget and. The study works with a unique set of data from the years 2016-2020, collected by summarizing information from the application programs of the Labour Office of the Czech Republic. The following benefits were identified as those accounting for the highest claims: childcare allowance, subsistence allowance, housing benefit, care allowance, and supplementary housing benefit. The claim recovery rate for the national budget stands at 71%, whereby a progressive and continuous decline in the aggregate amount of claims was proven.