The Washington Times, a right wing newspaper affiliated with Reverend Moon's Unification Church, publishes items from time to time about audit reports of Social Security's Office of Inspector General. I would infer that Social Security's Inspector General is alerting the Washington Times. Here are some excerpts from an article in today's Washington Times:
The Social Security Administration is paying out more than $100 million a year to people getting benefits overseas despite rules that say recipients cannot live outside of the United States, a new government audit has found.
The report by the SSA's Office of Inspector General says the agency relies on people to "self-report" absences from the United States, but estimated that as many as 40,000 recipients in foreign countries were overpaid more than $225 million from 2005 to 2007.
"Despite SSA's efforts to identify residency violations, we estimate a substantial number of violations have not been detected, resulting in millions of dollars in overpayments," Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll Jr. concluded.
Of course, the article is misleading since it strongly suggests that it is improper to pay Social Security benefits to those living overseas. Benefits under Title II of the Social Security Act, that is benefits paid based upon earnings and taxes paid, are properly payable to American citizens living overseas. There is nothing controversial about that. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is normally not payable to those living outside the United States. The actual audit report concerned SSI benefits, an important fact not revealed in the article.
The Inspector General accessed the bank account records of some 250 foreign born SSI recipients and found ATM withdrawals at locations outside the U.S. for 10 of those 250 people. While it is possible that some of those 10 people had remained in the U.S. but used ATM cards to transfer money to relatives in other countries, most of these people were ineligible for benefits for some period of time because of being outside the U.S.
I am not sure that it is appropriate to extrapolate as much as the Inspector General did from such a small sample. For example, the Inspector General was unable to contact six of the ten individuals identified as having foreign ATM withdrawals -- and concluded that they were ineligible for anything. Maybe, but plenty of native born SSI recipients are hard to get up with it. The Inspector General report explains the small sample by noting that the audit was a labor intensive process.
The Inspector General report also fails to mention that lack of personnel at Social Security is a major contributing factor to this and other systemic problems at the Social Security Administration. Calling for more personnel at Social Security is something that does not fit into the right wing agenda. Blaming foreigners for every sort of problem imaginable does fit into the right wing agenda, however.
The Inspector General accessed the bank account records of some 250 foreign born SSI recipients and found ATM withdrawals at locations outside the U.S. for 10 of those 250 people. While it is possible that some of those 10 people had remained in the U.S. but used ATM cards to transfer money to relatives in other countries, most of these people were ineligible for benefits for some period of time because of being outside the U.S.
I am not sure that it is appropriate to extrapolate as much as the Inspector General did from such a small sample. For example, the Inspector General was unable to contact six of the ten individuals identified as having foreign ATM withdrawals -- and concluded that they were ineligible for anything. Maybe, but plenty of native born SSI recipients are hard to get up with it. The Inspector General report explains the small sample by noting that the audit was a labor intensive process.
The Inspector General report also fails to mention that lack of personnel at Social Security is a major contributing factor to this and other systemic problems at the Social Security Administration. Calling for more personnel at Social Security is something that does not fit into the right wing agenda. Blaming foreigners for every sort of problem imaginable does fit into the right wing agenda, however.
5 comments:
"Blaming foreigners for every sort of problem imaginable does fit into the right wing agenda, however."
BS, it's illegal immigration/work that most people have a problem with (myself included). If a person has gone though the legal process of coming into this country and is working, very few people have a problem with that.
Thanks for the piece. One quibble.
Why do people refer to Moon's propaganda unit simply as "a right wing newspaper affiliated with Reverend Moon's Unification Church"?
Moon owns it no matter what the deception peddler John Solomon says. Moon transferred the money himself to fund/created News World Communications. He openly brags about using the paper to manipulate our political system. The WT is an integral part of Moon's effort to gain power and influence and it has been wildly successful.
Please read this.
Watch this panel discussion featuring three former editors of Moon's media and then please simply refer to the WT as Moon's propaganda unit to fox us out of our democratic republic.
And everyone knows that the New York Times is perfectly free of all bias and slanted reporting and that Punch Sulzberger has no input into the stories, opinions, etc expressed in that paper???? And the Times has never acted in a way to try to influence our political system???
As an ancient college professor told me in those ancient times when I was in school, EVERY news story has a perspective and until one starts reading papers, listening to TV news, etc. with that understanding, one is liable to be influenced in ways one would not think possible.
Sometimes, I just want to say "A pox on all their houses"!
Not clear in this article is how long any of the SSI recipients were absent. The law says they become ineligible after being out of the U.S. for more than 30 days. Many of the immigrant citizens receiving SSI knod exactly how long they can be gone and take trips to visit family in Thailand, Mexico and other countries and return within the 30 day limit. In short, SSI recipients may travel to other countries but they must reside in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia or the Northern Mariana Islands.
As usual, this "study" does nothing more than continue to demonstrate OIG's lack of understanding of SSA programs and total lack of knowlege regarding basic analytical research methods and the use of statistics.
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