The US Treasury mistakenly sent more than $1.4bn of its pandemic rescue funds to dead people, government inspectors have found.
But the rush to deliver the money has contributed to errors, inspectors said.
For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Treasury Department, which was in charge of mailing stimulus cheques to American families, did not check death records, even though some of the tax officials working on the program said they raised concerns about the risk of erroneous mailings.