California officials: At least 10% of EDD payments during pandemic were fraudulent FacebookTwitterEmail ment benefits, paid billions to fraudsters, officials said.Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle 2020 More than a quarter of the $114 billion in unemployment payments ostensibly made to Californians since the start of the pandemic may have been stolen by fraudsters, state officials said Monday. Of the money distributed since March by the state Employment Development Department, 10% has been confirmed stolen via fraud, while 17% has been flagged as potential fraud, Julie Su, the state’s top labor official, said on a press call Monday. Some of the payments came from state funds and some was federally funded.