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Labor secretary announces fraud 'strike teams' heading to Minnesota

Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer joins the "Ruthless" podcast to discuss her team's investigations of rampant fraud in Minnesota. (12/16/25)

The U.S. welfare system is broken, and the Minnesota scandal is a blaring warning to that reality.

The failure of political leaders on many fronts bears some of the blame. But the main culprit is the massive federal welfare system that annually passes hundreds of billions of dollars down to states to dole out, with the philosophy that the more people on the rolls, the better.

The structure of the U.S. welfare system creates incentives for states to expand the rolls – and little incentive for them to ensure that money is going to those who truly need it. As welfare rolls expand, programs receive more money. It’s a system based on the Democratic perspective that government should provide more support to more people.

And the U.S. welfare system is massive. It consists of roughly 90 different programs that cost more than $1 trillion annually.

BESSENT TURNS UP HEAT ON SPRAWLING MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEMES AS TREASURY PERSONNEL DEPLOY ON THE GROUND

Because the majority of U.S. welfare funding comes from the federal government, states have reason to expand their rolls and little financial incentive to protect against waste and fraud.

And massive fraud is what happened in Minnesota.