California’s attempt to claw back more than $20 billion in unemployment insurance (UI) payments from those who didn’t qualify for benefits has flopped, with 80 percent of the 1.4 million recipients contacted failing to respond to the government’s request to prove their eligibility. The federally funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program was designed to help people, such as small business owners and self-employed independent contractors, who wouldn’t normally qualify for Employment Development Department (EDD) benefits. The PUA program expired last fall, but many of the 2.9 million Californians who received the benefits weren’t qualified to receive them. Only about 280,000 PUA recipients have provided proof. Of those who did respond, about nine out of every 10 were deemed eligible to receive the benefits, according to the Sacramento Bee. The state has reported about $20 billion in suspected EDD fraud and appealed to PUA recipients in November to prove they had …