“Brazen.” That’s the key word in the Justice Department’s indictment of 47 defendants in Minnesota, alleging they siphoned nearly $250 million from a federal program meant to provide food to needy children during the pandemic. Though the accused conspirators claimed to have provided up to 125 million meals, prosecutors said they used federal dollars to buy jewelry, luxury cars, real estate and more.

Fraudsters likely stole $45.6 billion from the United States' unemployment insurance program during the COVID-19 pandemic by applying tactics like using Social Security numbers of deceased individuals, a federal watchdog said on Thursday.

About a year ago, nearly $16 billion in potential fraud had been identified. The report issued Thursday by the inspector general for the U.S. Labor Department identified "an increase of $29.6 billion in potentially fraudulent payments."

The Labor Department’s Inspector General has updated its estimates of fraud in pandemic-era unemployment benefits, and it’s hard to know what’s worse: the shoddy systems that allowed crooks to bilk taxpayers, or the Biden Administration’s refusal to do anything about it.

President Donald Trump is weighing executive action to avoid massive layoffs at U.S. airlines if Congress fails to agree a fresh coronavirus stimulus package, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on Wednesday.

His remarks came a day after American Airlines (AAL.O) said its workforce will shrink by 40,000, including 19,000 involuntary cuts, in October without an extension of government aid as the pandemic continues to devastate travel demand.

The majority of states have yet to commit to the program for boosting unemployment benefits offered by President Trump via executive action.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday confirmed that only a handful of states have either been approved, applied, or in the process of signing up for the program.

“It looks like five states have already been approved. We have another four states that have submitted and about another 10 states that are in the process,” he told CNBC.

This Abridge News topic aggregates four unique arguments on different sides of the debate. Here are the quick facts to get you started:

THE QUICK FACTS

Do you want to see how legislation that was supposed to be a bailout for our economy ended up committing almost as much taxpayer money to help a relative handful of the non-needy as it spent to help tens of millions of people in need? Then let’s step back and revisit parts of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and look at some of the numbers involved.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act was a roughly $2 trillion bill passed in March that provided economic assistance to everyone from unemployed workers and beleaguered small businesses to overwhelmed hospitals and state governments. Was it also a giveaway to millionaires?

Yes, according to a May 14 Facebook post.

Using simple text on a black background, the post says: "Hidden in the CARES Act was an obscure $135 billion tax break for 43,000 millionaires. Apparently, no one asked, ‘How are we going to pay for it?’"

The US is now beginning to feel the full effects of the pandemic, along with the economic stress of the lock down measures that were taken to prevent it from spreading.

"This is going to get worse before it gets better," says Dr. Anthony Fauci with the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Jobless claims are already far worse than some expected. Nearly 10 million Americans filed for unemployment in just two weeks and those numbers may be low because states are overwhelmed with all of the new claims, so there may actually be many more people out of work.

How to access the direct payments, unemployment insurance, and small-business loans in the CARES Act.

The early numbers from the coronavirus economic crisis are grim. Millions of Americans are waiting for federal help in the form of direct payments, unemployment insurance benefits, or food assistance.

Last week, Congress officially passed a $2 trillion stimulus package, called the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, aimed at helping workers, businesses, and states deal with the economic fallout from efforts to curb the coronavirus outbreak.