The United States Treasury Department on Friday said that the federal deficit reached $2.8 trillion in fiscal 2021, the second largest in history.

The figure is however down $360 billion from the record set during the previous fiscal year.

Last year, as the U.S. economy was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the deficit rose to a record high $3.1 trillion.

That figure was more than double the record set in 2009, when the deficit reached $1.4 trillion during the Great Recession.

The Hill reports the Treasury and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to have said on Friday that the deficit for fiscal year 2021, which ran from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, was $897 billion less the $3.7 trillion estimate previously forecasted in the president's 2022 budget.

The latest budget report said governmental revenue totaled $4 trillion in fiscal 2021, up 18.3 percent from the previous year and exceeding previous projections forecast in the president's budget.

(With input from agencies)