States paid pandemic unemployment benefits to 200,000 dead people, federal audit finds

States paid out billions of dollars in pandemic unemployment claims to more than 200,000 applicants whose Social Security numbers indicated they were already dead, according to a new inspector general’s audit.

Nearly 1 million more claims were paid to Social Security numbers that were submitted in multiple states — another indication of fraud, because the law only allowed someone to claim the enhanced pandemic unemployment benefits in a single state at one time.

And 1.7 million more claims were paid to people who filed from “suspicious email addresses,” the Labor Department’s inspector general said.