Israel
By Shimon B. Lifkin
YERUSHALAYIM -
Thursday, February 18, 2021 at 3:55 pm | ו' אדר תשפ"א
Israel’s National Insurance Institute (Bituach Leumi) earlier this year paid out almost a billion shekels in unemployment benefits to people who weren’t eligible, and now is trying to get the money back.
Payments averaging NIS 2,400 were sent to about 382,000 people who had gone back to work and were no longer entitled to the benefits, altogether about 920 million shekels, Bituach Leumi said. The payouts were made in the first months of the pandemic when large numbers of Israelis—about a million at its peak—were thrown out of work by state-ordered shutdowns.