Many Errors In Disabled Adult Child Cases

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program provides benefits to wage earners and eligible family members in the event a wage earner retires, becomes disabled, or dies. Child benefits under this program include benefits for minor children, students, and disabled adult children.

SSA initially processes most disability claims through local SSA field offices and state disability determination services that make disability determinations for SSA. 

We reviewed a random sample of 100 claims from a population of 5,237 child’s insurance benefits claims that were filed from January 2023 through November 2025 that SSA initially denied because it determined the claimants were not disabled. 

Of the 100 initial claims we reviewed, SSA correctly denied 49 for child’s insurance benefits based on medical eligibility requirements. When SSA subsequently approved the 49 claims, it correctly paid the claimants. However, SSA did not correctly deny, pay, and/or document decisions for the remaining 51 claims. 

 SSA employees incorrectly denied 11 claims. Based on our sample, we estimate the Agency incorrectly denied about 600 claims.

 SSA employees did not document whether they completed all required actions when they requested required forms orevidence from the claimants before they denied eight claims. Based on our sample, we estimate this occurred in about 450 claims.

 SSA employees did not correctly pay benefits to 32 claimants after they subsequently found the claimants were disabled and approved their claims. Based on our sample, after SSA approved the claims, we estimate employees did not correctly pay about 1,100 claimants, resulting in underpayments of approximately $1.2 million. Additionally, based on our sample, we estimate SSA employees properly paid about 340 claimants; however, the Agency did not establish the correct dates they were entitled to Medicare benefits.

We could not determine why employees made these errors.

Not All Children Paid Properly

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program provides monthly benefits to retired and disabled workers and their dependents as well as the survivors of deceased workers. The minor child of an insured worker may receive Social Securitybenefits until they reach age 18. A child beneficiary may continue receiving benefits after they reach age 18 if they qualify as a student beneficiary. …

We identified 521,393 beneficiaries who were entitled to student benefits for 1 or more months from January 2022 through December 2024. We randomly selected 100 of these beneficiaries to determine whether SSA accurately paid student benefits to eligible beneficiaries.  Of the 100 beneficiaries we reviewed, SSA correctly paid benefits to 71 in accordance with policy. However, SSA did not correctly pay benefits to 17 beneficiaries. In addition, SSA did not retain documentation to support benefit payments to 12 beneficiaries. SSA did not correctly pay benefits to 17 beneficiaries as follows.

 For nine, beneficiaries and school officials did not provide SSA accurate or current school attendance information that affected eligibility for student benefits, and SSA was unaware the information contained errors.

 For eight, SSA employees did not correctly use available school attendance and graduation information to determine the duration of student benefit eligibility.

In addition, SSA employees did not retain completed Forms SSA-1372 for 12 of the 100 beneficiaries, as required. Without evidence, we could not determine whether the individual  were entitled to the student benefits SSA paid them. As a result, SSA improperly paid beneficiaries $49,447 and could not support an additional $93,466 in benefit payments. Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA improperly paid approximately $211 million to about 89,000 beneficiaries. In addition, we estimate SSA made approximately $342 million in unsupported payments to about 63,000 student beneficiaries. …

And The Problem Will Just Get Worse Until The Agency Gets More Employees

      From an report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… To maintain accurate earnings information, SSA uses the earnings alert system to identify discrepancies between a recipient’s reported and actual wages. A discrepancy occurs when a recipient’s actual earnings differ from the earnings SSA used to calculate the SSI payment.

We identified 417,291 SSI recipients who had at least 1 pending earnings alert on their record as of September 2024. We randomly selected 100 of these recipients to determine whether SSA took appropriate action to resolve the alerts. 

SSA employees resolved earnings alerts for 20 of the 100 recipients we reviewed. However, Agency employees did not resolve earnings alerts for 80 recipients who had at least 1 earnings alert pending as of September 2024.

• For 63 recipients SSA employees did not start reviews of 37 earnings alerts and did not complete their reviews of 26 earnings alerts. As of April 2025, the 63 earnings alerts remained pending.
• For 17 recipients, SSA employees cleared the earnings alerts but did not verify and record all earnings that affected the SSI payment amounts.. their reviews of 26 earnings alerts. As of April 2025, the 63 earnings alerts remained pending.  …

Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA paid about 333,800 recipients approximately $1 billion that they would not have been eligible to receive had the Agency properly considered and fully developed their unreported earnings when it determined their SSI eligibility and associated payment amounts. .

Is A 99.997% Accuracy Rate Satisfactory?

      From a press release issued by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG):

The Social Security Administration (SSA), Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a new audit examining whether SSA assigned more than one Social Security number (SSN) to the same infant through the Enumeration at Birth (EAB) program.

Of the approximately 13.9 million SSNs the Agency issued through EAB between January 2021 and September 2024, SSA correctly assigned only one SSN per infant at a rate of 99.997 percent.  SSA OIG identified 420 infants (.003 percent) for whom it appeared SSA assigned more than one SSN and had not cross-referenced the associated records. …

OIG Report On Numident Data Exchanges

      Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on data exchange agreements affecting its Numident system. It reveals that the agency already has more than 3,400 data exchange agreements and expects to increase that number by 10% a year despite the fact that the agency already has a backlog of 1.3 billion data exchanges that haven’t been processed. OIG “recommended SSA establish processes for components to collaborate on matching criteria and enhance criteria to increase verified matches where appropriate. SSA agreed to implement our recommendations.”

     Others with more knowledge of Numident can correct me but I think Numident isn’t even all that important. It’s not used for benefit payment purposes. It’s highly unlikely that any significant numbers of ineligible benefits recipients will be discovered no matter how many data matches you process. This sounds like a report designed to appeal to President Trump’s obsession with undocumented aliens. I wonder how many of the data exchanges already underway are cost effective. The number of data exchanges already underway troubles me. There’s too many opportunities for errors that will cause unnecessary problems for people who have done nothing wrong. These databases, like Social Security’s and everyone else’s, contain errors but how important are they if the data isn’t being used for benefit payment purposes?

Lots Of Poor People Not Being Paid The Benefits They Are Due

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… When SSA identifies an underpayment of $1 or more, it issues the underpayment to the recipient, or an eligible survivor if the recipient is deceased, after it offsets any  outstanding overpayments, Interim Assistance reimbursements, and authorized representative fees. 

For large underpayments, employees must conduct and document a pre-payment review before they release a payment.

We identified 2 populations: Population 1 comprised 2.5 million underpayments pending on the Supplemental Security Record as of September 2024 and Population 2 comprised 2.4 million underpayments SSA paid between  

Of the 160 pending underpayments in Population 1, SSA paid 80 SSI recipients (50 percent) the underpayments they were due when required. However, SSA employees did not follow policy to ensure the SSA paid 69 recipients (43 percent) the underpayments they were due. The remaining 11 (7 percent) were incorrect underpayments that should be removed from the records.  

Additionally, of the 80 underpayments for deceased recipients in Population 1, we identified 47 underpayments, totaling $22,861, that remained on SSA’s records even though they were not payable to anyone.  

Of the 100 underpayments in Population 2, SSA paid 88 SSI recipients (88 percent) the underpayments they were due and conducted pre-payment reviews for them when required. We did not find evidence SSA employees followed policy and conducted
pre-payment reviews for the remaining 12 (12 percent) underpayments, as required. Of the 2.5 million underpayments that were pending as of September 2024, we estimate SSA did not pay 1.1 million underpayments, totaling about $291 million, that were owed to SSI recipients. …

Recording The Undead

      From a press release:

The Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit report, Beneficiaries Incorrectly Recorded as Deceased (032311).  The audit examined whether SSA employees complied with Agency policies when correcting the records of living beneficiaries who were incorrectly recorded as deceased.  …

The OIG reviewed a random sample of beneficiaries whom SSA recorded as deceased between January 2020 and December 2024 and later removed the death records from the Numident (and thereby removing such records from the DMF).  Auditors found that, when SSA technicians corrected 45 percent of the incorrect death records, they did not document why the deaths were recorded in the first place, or why they were subsequently removed, as required by Agency policy. …

Some Overpayments Aren’t Worth Trying To Collect

      Social Security’s Office of Inspector General has issued a report on an investigation into the cost effectiveness of the agency’s efforts to collect small overpayments. Here’s an excerpt.

… Of the 250 low-dollar OASDI [Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance] overpayments we reviewed, SSA took actions on 50 (20 percent) that we did not consider cost-beneficial because it sent more notices to the overpaid individuals than required. Since SSA could not provide its average cost to send an overpayment notice, we applied the average cost to collect overpayments as reported in CAS during our audit period, and we did not consider it to have been cost-beneficial to recover these 50 overpayments. Specifically, we estimate SSA spent $14,492 to attempt to recover the 50 overpayments, which totaled $8,129. 

Projected to our population, we estimated SSA spent $4.6 million to recover almost 16,000 low-dollar OASDI overpayments totaling almost $2.6 million. Therefore, we estimate SSA spent about $2 million more than it would recover.  …

Medicare Enrollment Penalty Mistakes

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

SSA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services share administrative responsibilities for Medicare. …

SSA enrolls beneficiaries, establishes applicable premium penalties, and collects premiums from individuals who receive Social Security benefits. If an individual signs up for Part B after their Initial Enrollment Period, they may have to pay a late enrollment penalty. 

We identified 101,516 OASI beneficiaries who enrolled in Part B during the 2023 and/or 2024 General Enrollment Periods and whom SSA penalized for late enrollment. We reviewed a random sample of 200 of these beneficiaries. 

SSA employees accurately processed 177 of the 200 Part B applications we reviewed. However, SSA employees did not accurately process the applications for the remaining 23 beneficiaries. As a result, SSA’s systems improperly assessed approximately $24,000 in Part B premium penalties. 

Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA employees accurately processed approximately 90,000 beneficiaries’ applications and did not accurately process 12,000 beneficiaries’ applications. As a result, SSA’s systems improperly assessed about $12 million in Part B premium penalties. 

These errors occurred because SSA employees did not consider Group Health Plan coverage, the impact of U.S. residency and lawful presence start dates on Initial Enrollment Period determinations, deemed enrollment, Exceptional Conditions, Special Enrollment Periods, and equitable relief. …

     What I’ve seen over the years is that you can almost always find a legitimate way to avoid the late enrollment penalty. I don’t know why they even try to apply a penalty. It’s not worth the trouble.

41% Error Rate On Widow And Widower Claims

     From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program provides benefits to wage earners and eligible family members. The Agency uses the wage earner’s Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) to determine monthly benefit amounts. The eligibility year SSA uses to determine the PIA is usually the year a wage earner attains age 62, becomes disabled, or dies. However, an alternative PIA computation for widow(er)s—the widow(er)’s indexing (WINDEX) PIA—may apply when wage earners die before they attain age 62. 

When a claimant applies for Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance benefits, the application usually covers all benefits for which the claimant is eligible unless they specifically limit the scope of the application. For example, widow(er)s may limit the scope of the application to only include widow(er) benefits and exclude retirement benefits to maximize future benefits. 

We reviewed 2 samples totaling 120 beneficiaries who, as of November 2023, either did not have a WINDEX PIA (from a population of 54,843 beneficiaries) or were dually entitled to widow(er)s and retirement benefits (from a population of 7,253 beneficiaries).

SSA paid 71 (59 percent) of the 120 widow(er) beneficiaries we reviewed the appropriate monthly benefit amounts. For the remaining 49 (41 percent), we found the following. 

• SSA employees did not apply the WINDEX PIA appropriately when they manually processed cases for 11 widow(er) beneficiaries and, as a result, did not pay the appropriate monthly benefits. We could not determine why SSA employees did not appropriately apply the WINDEX PIA for these widow(er) beneficiaries. Based on our random sample, we estimate SSA underpaid 8,618 widow(er)s approximately $50.4 million.
• SSA overpaid one widow(er) because employees used the incorrect PIA.
• SSA employees did not document in the Agency’s system regarding whether they informed 37 widow(er) beneficiaries of their option to receive widow(er) benefits only and delay filing for retirement benefits. Therefore, we could not determine whether SSA appropriately paid these widow(er) beneficiaries despite reminders SSA issued to employees. We estimate 5,367 widow(er)s would have been eligible for $113.8 million in additional benefits had they chosen to delay their retirement claims. …

Critical Payment Errors

      From a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

An SSA employee initiates a critical payment when an Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance beneficiary or representative payee alerts SSA of a critical case or special situation when SSA is not paying regular monthly benefits, additional benefits are due, or a beneficiary reports they did not receive a monthly benefit. These include dire need, court orders, legislative mandates, and preliminary and expedited payments. …

We reviewed a random sample of 175 critical payments from a population of 3,549 issued in Fiscal Year 2023 …

We estimate SSA employees accurately processed about 44,000 (62 percent) of the 70,980 critical payments and did not accurately process about 27,000 (38 percent)—making over 28,000 errors when they processed the payments. About 2,800 of these errors resulted in the payments being incorrectly documented on beneficiaries’ records. For the remaining errors, we estimate the following. 

• Field office employees improperly paid approximately 6,900 beneficiaries about $1 million, but processing center employees identified the special situations and deductions from payment calculations during their post-payment review and adjusted future benefits due. 

•  About 8,100 of these errors resulted in SSA improperly paying beneficiaries $12 million because employees did not accurately adjust beneficiary records.

• SSA issued approximately 10,500 beneficiaries a Form SSA-1099, Social Security Benefit Statement, with a benefit total that was over- or understated by about $14 million because employees did not manually adjust records for replacement checks. …

“Financial Hardship And Emotional Distress”

      From Follow-up on Claims Denied Because Claimants Were Not Insured for Benefits, a report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… This audit is a follow up to our 2016 review of Retirement Claim Denials Because of Lack of Insured Status.  

Generally, to be insured for retirement benefits, a claimant must have 40 quarters of covered earnings and have attained age 62. SSA employees should not deny a retirement claim if the claimant is not insured for benefits at the time of filing but will become insured within 4 months and evidence of the earnings is available.  

We obtained the records of 450,209 retirement claims filed between May 2014 and June 2023 that SSA employees determined the claimants lacked insured status. From this, we identified 4,077 claimants who may have been insured because they had 40 or more quarters of coverage in the year of filing. Of the 100 claimants in our sample, SSA employees denied retirement claims for 43 who alleged lag earnings when they filed their claims, were fully insured, and entitled to retirement benefits but employees did not consider their lag earnings. Despite reminders issued to employees after our prior review, employees denied the retirement claims because they determined the claimants lacked insured status; however, the claimants had lag earnings when they filed their claims.  

Based on sample results, we estimate, from May 2014 to June 2023, employees denied retirement benefits to 1,753 claimants who were insured for benefits. Of these, 1,347 claimants were entitled to over $3 million in retirement benefits.  

Without controls and processes to ensure employees identify, review, and document lag earnings, SSA will continue denying millions of dollars in retirement benefits to claimants who should be receiving them. Depriving retired individuals of the benefits to which they are entitled could have a significant and harmful effect on beneficiaries, including financial hardship and emotional distress. …

     This problem is not limited to retirement claims. I’d say it’s more common in disability claims. 

I Don't Think We Can Trust This Report

      Back in July, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked that Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) perform an audit of Social Security's reported telephone call waiting times. The audit has now been completed and a report issued -- just before Christmas. The report says that the agency's metrics were accurate which is probably technically accurate but whether those metrics are fully meaningful is another question.        

    There are at least three problems with this report. First, there is zero reason to trust OIG. It no longer enjoys any independence. It doesn't report to the Commissioner but it does report to the White House. It is now clear that there can be no OIG reports at any agency which criticize the Administration. The release of such a critical report will be blocked and those who drafted it summarily fired. (Thank you, Supreme Court.) Second, the report admits that 25 million callers to Social Security became so frustrated by Social Security's answering system that they hung up. It didn't add these callers in to the phone answering metrics. If you do add them in you find out that they comprise a whopping 40% of calls to Social Security. That's a lot of frustrated callers. Third, many of the calls were handled by Interactive Voice Response (IVR) rather than a human. How effectively did IVR respond to requests for customer service? The agency reported a big jump in telephone calls this year. How much of that was due to failed IVR? Failed IVR also contributes to customer dissatisfaction. 

     Senator Warren is already accusing the Social Security of lying.

Again, Mr. Commissioner, What Are You Going To Do About These Payment Errors?

      From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program provides monthly benefits to retired and disabled workers and their dependents as well as the survivors of deceased workers. In general, to be entitled to benefits, a child of a retired, disabled, or deceased worker must: 1) be unmarried; 2) be under age 18, a full-time elementary or secondary school student under age 19, or have become disabled before age 22; and 3) meet certain relationship and dependency requirements. Generally, an SSA employee may appropriately deny a claim when the employee properly completes all necessary actions and determines the applicant has not established the claimant meets the requirements to be entitled to child’s insurance benefits. 

We reviewed a random sample of 100 claims from a population of 21,533 claims filed from January 2019 through July 2023 that SSA employees approved for benefits in July 2023 or earlier and a random sample of 100 claims from a population of 75,424 claims filed from January 2019 through July 2023 SSA employees did not approve for benefits as of July 2023. 

Of the 96,957 claims in our review, we estimate SSA employees correctly denied 37,712 (39 percent) and incorrectly denied 24,555 (25 percent). As a result of employee errors, SSA did not pay these beneficiaries approximately $92.2 million in benefits and delayed paying these beneficiaries approximately $87.7 million in benefits to which they were entitled. 

We could not conclude whether employees correctly denied the remaining 34,690 claims (36 percent). This includes an estimated 28,661 claims SSA employees denied before they appropriately completed all required actions; therefore, there was not enough information in SSA’s records to determine whether Agency employees appropriately denied the claims. …

     This might be tough for the Commissioner. I don’t think it can be solved by laying off employees or intimidating them or demanding they work harder.  It will take analysis of the difficulties in doing this work accurately, coming up with better workflow processes, coming up with better quality control processes and being honest with everyone about the workforce needed to do the job properly. The honesty part will be the hardest thing for this Administration. It’s easier to blame the “deep state” than to do the difficult work of governing. 

Are You Suggesting That There’s A Relationship Between Staffing And Productivity? That’s Crazy Talk!

      From a press release issued by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

From FY 2019 to FY 2023, Disability Determinations Services (DDS) productivity, measured as Production Per Work Year, decreased by 21 percent, and average processing time increased by 81 percent from 121 to 219 days. The lower productivity and increase in processing times coincided with the loss of key technical staff, including disability examiners who evaluate disability claims and make disability determinations in accordance with laws, regulations, policies, and procedures governing Social Security Administration (SSA) disability programs.

Social Security Doing A Poor Job Of Resolving Critical Issues

      From a recent report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

Objective
To determine whether employees submitted and processed Manager-to-Manager (M2M) requests in accordance with Social Security Administration (SSA) policy.

Background
When a field office (FO), processing center (PC), or teleservice center employee identifies a critical issue for a beneficiary that requires another office’s action, managers can expedite action for the beneficiary by initiating an M2M request. Managers should only use M2M for high priority requests, such as beneficiaries who have terminal illnesses; made homicidal, suicidal, or potentially violent behavior threats; or are in dire need situations, such as facing eviction or homelessness.

Given the critical nature of M2M requests, FO and PC employees must address them within 5-business days or provide an interim reply to the requesting manager explaining the delay.
We reviewed a random sample of 100 M2M requests: 50 in a “resolved” status from June 1, 2021 through June 1, 2023 and 50 in a “pending” status as of June 1, 2023.

Results
SSA employees generally submitted M2M requests according to SSA policy; however, they did not always follow policy when they processed M2M requests. Of the 100 M2M requests we sampled, FO and PC employees did not process 57 requests according to policy.

• For 48 requests, FO and PC employees did not process them timely, resulting in delays in employees addressing critical issues and beneficiaries waiting weeks or months to receive the benefits they were due. 
  

• For 9 requests, PC employees placed them in a “resolved” status in the M2M application before completing all necessary actions to address the requests.
  

SSA managers provided reasons for delays, and we identified control weaknesses that contributed to delays, such as: (1) case complexity; (2) insufficient communication between offices, including no notifications in the M2M application when employees take action on requests; and (3) the absence of controls that prevent employees from prematurely closing M2M requests.  ...

    This is the sort of thing that drives me and other Social Security attorneys crazy We can't get problems resolved.

The Actual Scope Of The Problem And The Sophisticated Efforts To Deal With It

     A press release from Social Security's Office of Inspector General:

Receiving accurate reports of death is a major and ongoing concern for the Social Security Administration (SSA). A recent report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) illustrates the need for SSA to continue to improve its death reporting processing systems.

According to the report entitled, “Rejection of State Death Reports,” from November 2018 through October 2022, states throughout the country submitted about 13.7 million death reports to SSA. SSA’s Death Information Processing System (DIPS) accepted about 12.2 million and rejected nearly 1.5 million (11 percent) state death reports. SSA OIG determined that SSA rejected over 1.4 million state death reports that did not pass DIPS verification checks. SSA uses DIPS to verify the death information it receives. DIPS rejects death reports that do not pass its verification checks to prevent posting erroneous death information to SSA records.

It is only after death information passes DIPS verifications that SSA records the information to the Numident (a database that stores information for all Social Security numberholders) and terminates payments to deceased beneficiaries. The verification checks prevented DIPS from posting incorrect or duplicate death information to SSA records for approximately 773,000 of the 1.4 million death reports submitted by states.

However, SSA OIG reported an estimated 702,000 of the 1.4 million state death reports that were rejected contained valid death data but did not pass DIPS verification checks. DIPS rejected most death reports when it detected a verification date submitted by the reporter was different than the latest verification date in SSA’s records. When this occurs, DIPS rejects the report without validating whether the reported death information is correct. This delays posting of the date of death to the Numident and payment records and results in continued payments to deceased beneficiaries until SSA receives and processes the death information.

This issue led to improper payments to beneficiaries of $327 million and could lead to an additional $108 million over the next year if SSA does not add death information to payment records for beneficiaries in current payment status. Moreover, SSA employees must manually process the rejected death records. It is estimated it will require SSA employees to spend 199,000 hours to process this workload, costing $12 million in administrative expenses. OIG made three recommendations to improve the accuracy of the death information in its records to which SSA agreed. See the full report here.

    These things are vastly more complicated than DOGE can imagine.

I Have Been Seeing More Of This Problem In The Last Year

      From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG):

… [W]e reviewed a sample of 274 cases from a population of 1.5 million recipients SSA placed in non-payment status codes from March 2020 through May 2022 after determining the recipients failed to provide requested information or take requested actions. Additionally, we identified 61,176 recipients who were placed into 7 non­payment status codes during periods SSA had prohibited their use. 

Results 

SSA did not act in accordance with its policy and procedures when it processed SSI ineligibility determinations and suspensions based on applicants’, recipients’, or representative payees’ failure to provide information. SSA’s employees did not complete all required steps for 156 (57 percent) of the 274 sampled cases placed in non-payment status, which led to 96 of the 156 recipients not receiving $203,133 in SSI payments they should have received. Projecting these results to our population, we estimate SSA did not follow its policy before it denied or suspended SSI payments for 871,330 recipients. Of these recipients, we estimate 536,203 did not receive $647 million in SSI payments they should have received. …

     It’s way too easy for field office employees to deny on the basis of failure to provide information without making any serious effort to contact the claimant.

It’s Hard To Administer SSI

      From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

… SSA’s SSI financial account validation process for applicants and recipients who alleged having less than $400 in financial accounts did not always lead to accurate SSI determinations. SSA’s process led it to make inaccurate SSI resource determinations for 27 of the 140 recipients reviewed. Based on these determinations, SSA paid the recipients $130,430 in SSI payments they were not eligible to receive. Based on these sample results, we estimate SSA incorrectly made SSI resource determinations that led to 198,960 recipients receiving $718 million in SSI payments for which they were not eligible because applicants/recipients under­reported their financial account balances by $100 or more. 

SSA’s policy did not require that it validate the recipients’ financial account balances because they alleged they had less than $400 in liquid resources. The AFI reports we requested identified 102 of 140 applicants/recipients under-reported their financial account balances by $100 or more. Additionally, the AFI reports showed 28 of the applicants/recipients owned financial accounts of which SSA was unaware. Based on these sample results, we estimate 800,140 applicants/recipients under-reported their financial account balances by $100 or more, with 219,640 failing to report all the financial accounts they owned to SSA. ..

 

Rep Payee Problems

     From a recent report by Social Security’s Office of Inspector General:

SSA did not ensure employees made complete and accurate capability determinations for disabled beneficiaries who previously had payees.  We estimate, for approximately 19,000 disabled beneficiaries who previously had payees, there was no evidence SSA determined the beneficiaries were capable of managing, or directing the management of, their benefits.  In addition, there was no evidence SSA performed proper follow-up development.  SSA paid approximately $887 million in benefits directly to these beneficiaries without evidence to show they were capable of, or were, using the benefits to meet their basic needs.  Finally, we estimate SSA did not properly document capability determinations for approximately 6,700 beneficiaries. 

This occurred because SSA did not have effective system controls to ensure employees properly documented their capability determinations.  Additionally, SSA did not have controls to ensure employees authorized direct payments to incapable beneficiaries in accordance with SSA’s policy and properly performed the follow-up reviews after they made interim direct payment to those