... Marriage can impact a Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) beneficiary’s payment. We randomly selected 1 of 20 segments from the Supplemental Security Record (SSR) and Master Beneficiary Record (MBR). We identified 3 populations with name changes and sampled 250 individuals ...
SSA did not always take the necessary manual actions to properly update 38 of the 250 payment records for SSI recipients or OASDI beneficiaries when there was a name change because of marriage. Furthermore, SSA had not taken manual action on 11 SSI recipients or OASDI beneficiaries who changed their name via the iSSNRC application. We estimate SSA improperly paid 16,631 SSI recipients and OASDI beneficiaries approximately $240.9 million when there was a name change because of marriage. ...
When a person changes their name, SSA systems do not automatically determine whether they are receiving benefits. SSA does not know about a marriage until an individual reports it. ...
SSA explored the feasibility of using electronic marriage data to determine if OASDI beneficiaries changed their marital status. However, not all states/jurisdictions have a central repository of electronic marriage data, and many do not require, or collect, the marriage applicants’ Social Security number. ...
There's a lot that Social Security could do to prevent overpayments if it had an adequate workforce. A different Inspector General might want to issue a report detailing how much money is being wasted due to inadequate staffing at the Social Security Administration.
By the way, there's also the question of whether marriage should have as many effects as it does on Social Security and SSI benefits but that's another topic.