Fraud is real, and vast, and if it creeps in it undermines the whole thing. What's the alternative?
Fraud does happen. But it doesn't happen enough for it to be worth setting up an entire bureaucracy to prevent it. Especially if that bureaucracy undermines the value of the program for everyone who's faithfully making use of the services in the intended manner.
More and more, it seems that keeping social welfare programs inefficient is benefiting the people who want to remove them entirely (in favor of lowering taxes).
But perhaps it would happen vastly more if that bureaucracy wasn't trying to prevent? I don't know, but I suspect there are an awful lot of people who would commit fraud if they thought they'd get away with it.
Accept that some people getting help will need it less than others.
There's "fraud" and then there's homeless people trying to get their lives on track. People who need help and support. Saddling them with complex frequent requirements and then calling failing to meet them "fraud" is not helping people.
Be interested in helping people instead of helping only the "right" people.
It's simpler just to give every citizen the same amount of money than to have to deal with all the edge cases of people having different income this year (and needing the money immediately) versus last year. If you get hit by a bus on January 1st, I'd hope that the money was available for you right away, not in another year.
Additionally, I'd like to see a "rolling average" approach to taxation. I think it's enormously unfair that someone who has a one time event (like making a million dollar commission on a sale they worked on for five years) is taxed massively more, and misses out on many more tax credits, than someone who makes $200K a year for five years.
However, from a society-level view, how much value do we get from the X spent in prevention? We're funneling money to a specific goal, so some verification is needed. But the more we verify, the more man-hours we spend on filling out and checking the paperwork. None of that work benefits society. Those people could've been doing other jobs that perform useful services. And it's not like the money going to fraudsters vanishes. At least it goes back into the economy. We should require only enough to make sure we achieve the program's goals within budget.
Figuring that out is the hard part. Hopefully smart minds have been tackling this.
Actually no, at least 40 billion went to a Nigerian scammer group. That’s a national security issue and overrides concerns about charity and equity. It’s an existential threat.
(I mean entirely, because if there are people living comfortably on the program without no motivation to do anything else in their life, then a) maybe that's okay, b) maybe that's a mental health issue [and fixing it might cost a lot more], c) at some point the fraud becomes so encompassing, that it's not the program's fault, but it's someone literally robbing taxpayers via whatever means they can. Furthermore any social program that only addresses and takes into account some narrow slice of people's life problems will be easily gameable, so let's have comprehensive integrated programs. Yes, they are hard, but it's not like putting people on the moon is that much easier.)