Case Study: Arizona Department of Economic Security saves over $40 billion and slashes PUA fraud 98.8% with ID.me

How a Public-Private Partnership Provided Benefits to Eligible Individuals and Saved Billions for One State

The Arizona Department of Economic Security (DES) faced an unprecedented surge of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) claims during COVID-19, with widespread identity-theft-driven fraud threatening timely benefits delivery. DES partnered with ID.me and adopted its NIST IAL2–certified digital identity verification (including ID.me’s Unsupervised Remote and Supervised Remote verification) to reliably distinguish legitimate applicants from fraudsters.

ID.me rolled out its platform for high-risk claims in September 2020, expanded to all new PUA claims by October 29, and verified existing claimants starting December 4. The implementation cut weekly new claims from about 570,409 (week ending Oct 10) to 6,700 (week ending Nov 14), a 98.8% decrease, and reduced continued PUA claims 68.3% in one week (268,556 to 85,174), helping DES avoid an estimated $40+ billion in fraudulent payouts while ensuring benefits reached eligible people.

Arizona Department of Economic Security

Blake Hall

Chief Executive Officer