Larry Turner, the inspector general of the US Department of Labor, speaks at a hearing Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023 (YouTube)

The United States may have made up to $191 billion in improper Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payments, Labor Department Inspector General Larry Turner told the US House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, as Washington continues to uncover the vast, still-growing extent of the waste and fraud targeting coronavirus aid.

"Applying the estimated 21.52 percent improper payment rate to the approximate $888 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) expenditures, at least $191 billion in pandemic UI payments could have been improper payments, with a significant portion attributable to fraud," Turner said.

The pandemic UI improper payment rate was however likely higher than the 21.52 percent used to compute the $191 billion possible loss, Turner added.

Read: US suspected of involvement in COVID-19 outbreak: Russian MoD

The information was revealed at a hearing convened by Rep. Jason T. Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who called the unemployment insurance problems the “greatest theft of taxpayer dollars in American history.”

The unprecedented infusion of federal funds into UI programs gave individuals and organized criminal groups a "high-value target" to exploit, Turner said.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many states were not ready to process the extraordinary volume of UI claims, which resulted in a lapse in some internal controls traditionally used to process claims, Turner added.

On Wednesday, top watchdogs told the House Ways and Means Committee that they still cannot calculate the total amount of federal covid aid subject to fraud and abuse.

Turner’s testimony noted however that the US's misspending on unemployment benefits, in particular, may be much higher than previously known.

While the money was aimed to rescue the economy from the big crisis, it led to an unprecedented wave of theft.

Check out: The US government lost about $5.6B through fraud in 2021