From the Federal Eye column in the Washington Post:
[The Government Accountability Office] reported that, from 2005-2014, the Social Security Disability Insurance program overpaid $11 billion to beneficiaries who earned too much money to qualify for full benefits. An untrained observer might think this represented an unconscionable squandering of public funds. ...
But on the first page of the report, GAO notes that SSA paid out approximately $143 billion in disability benefits in 2014 alone. SSA’s own actuarial estimates put the total ten-year outlay from 2005-2014 at $1.169 trillion, compared to $11 billion in overpayments. That’s less than 1 percent of total expenditures.
Furthermore, all $11 billion wasn’t lost to the government. SSA can claw back overpayments from disability beneficiaries in subsequent years. In fact, GAO reveals on page 9 of its report that SSA collected $7.8 billion in outstanding debt in the ten-year time frame. Only $1.4 billion in work-related overpayments were completely written off. Now we’re down to 0.12 percent of total expenditures. ...
If I were to tell you that the Social Security disability program was 99.88 percent accurate in issuing benefit amounts to recipients, you might think they were doing an outstanding job. But if I told you the program overpaid by $11 billion – while neglecting to mention how they clawed most of it back – you might dust off your pitchfork and join your local mob’s march to the nearest SSA satellite office. ...
The drumbeat of stories about stray billions lost here and spent there serves the side of our national debate that wants to reduce the size of government and privatize many of its functions. They’re given an artificial boost by reporting which flatters their prejudices. It’s hard to advocate for expanding social benefits amid inaccurate tales of waste. And this can have real consequences. ...
[L]ast week’s budget deal creates roving Cooperative Disability Investigations units, special Justice Department prosecutors and expanded reviews to look into suspected fraud. The changes result directly from the insistence of Congressional Republicans, aided by the media, that the disability program is rife with fraud.
But the budget deal’s reforms sound like something you would invest in to police a broken agency, not one with a 99.88 percent accuracy rate. Any private-sector company with a record as sterling as the disability program would be lauded as an industry model. But thanks to the massive amount of money they pump out on an annual basis, they can be demonized for minor slippages.And let's not forget to mention the active collusion of the GAO and Social Security's Office of Inspector General with Republican efforts to present overpayment information in a misleading way.
