From a Treasury Department press release:
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service announced the successful implementation of a new government-wide payment verification process that helps stop federal payments from being sent to deceased individuals …
Since President Trump issued Executive Order 14249, Protecting America's Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse, on March 25, 2025, Treasury has significantly expanded government-wide efforts to detect and prevent fraud and improper payments through the Do Not Pay program and new payment verification tools.
To date, Treasury has screened over 885 million payments totaling approximately $2.77 trillion as part of the new payment verification process. The screening has identified more than 4,900 payments worth approximately $99 million that were associated with deceased payees. …
Remember that claim from the Commissioner of Social Security that $100 million had been saved by identifying deceased payees, a claim that mystified us? I think we now know what he was talking about. That $99 million in alleged savings was throughout the federal government. Probably little of it was at Social Security. It’s not clear where it could have been saved since Social Security’s Death Master File has been used for many years throughout government to prevent improper payments. Perhaps the $99 million was nothing more than the sort of thing that was already being detected and prevented. It was certainly nothing that Bisignano should have been claiming credit for. Note that he only claimed credit for this on the Bannon podcast. Not much fact checking there.
100 MILLION? Wow... lots of dead people. I can see how a few individuals (ok prolly more than a few) continue to collect after the death of an elder family member. $100,000,000 though? Also, when my dad died, all that was reported to SSA through the medical examiner or the funeral home, not sure which. I verified he was marked as deceased with SSA. That number is overinflated though, just based on common sense.
ReplyDelete100 million is not meaningful amount when compared to the 2.7 trillion in total payments analyzed. For example, take 5,000 incorrectly paid beneficiaries with average payment of $1,600 -- it would only take 12 months to reach 100 million (six months for 10,000 beneficiaries).
DeleteThere are 3 million deaths per year in the United States, which is increasing with our aging population. If you take a small % of those deaths and issue post-death payments mistakenly for 1-2 months per beneficiary, you get to $100,000,000 fairly easily.
The $99 million (Bisignano rounded up) was for 4,900 payments and there is no indication of how many--if any--were payments made by SSA. It's very possible that none of them were, since SSA already had access to the Death Master File, and this press release is about increased data sharing. The average overpayment is thus about $20k...it doesn't take much VA benefit, farm subsidy, OPM pension, etc. to reach that amount. The press release points out that over 885 million payments were screened and 4900 were made to people on the do not pay list. So about 5-6 bad payments out of a million, and in some cases the error was putting the person on the Do Not Pay list, not the payment itself. I'm all for avoiding payments to dead people. I would just like to know, if this data sharing saved $99 million, how much did it cost? Because if it cost $1 million, that is great. If it cost $200 million, it was a waste.
DeleteWow I never knew we had so many billionaires following this blog that $100M in savings is just "a trickle." And not counted in that are all the SSA salaries saved (pensions, TSP, insurance) from all those who left, and the rest of us picking up the slack to make sure the agency runs with peak efficiency. Pretty dang impressive. But I get it, you won't be impressed until he's saved over $885 million.
DeleteMr. Bisignano is trying very hard to save money and has already saved you $100M. You’re upset because…why?
ReplyDeleteBecause he’s lying and you’re dumb!
DeleteAny achievements he brags about is offset by the damage he’s done.
DeleteHe hasn’t saved anyone a dime.
Bc the government has never lied to the people?!—JHC, I certainly pray u are a bot and not a sentient being
DeleteHe’s a crook!
DeleteHe is even saving money on headsets
ReplyDeleteNo more cordless, corded only.
We will all enjoy Franks clarification next Congress. If he stays.
ReplyDeleteWill the master death file have credibility again?
ReplyDeleteIt never had much in the first place to regain. After all, it was a file of people that are definitely dead combined with people that are "possibly" dead.
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