More than $87 billion in unemployment benefits funded by the federal government was likely siphoned from the system during the Covid-19 pandemic, much of it due to fraud, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report.

Congress authorized many new programs in the pandemic's early days to support millions of workers who'd lost their jobs. Those programs, which ended on Labor Day this year, raised weekly benefits, extended the duration of aid and expanded the pool of jobless Americans eligible for payments.

The federal government issued $872 billion in total benefits as of Sept. 30, according to an estimate from the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General, which released a semiannual report for Congress on Monday.

However, the

More than $87 billion in federal benefits siphoned from unemployment system, says Labor Department

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