WASHINGTON — Social Security made $6.5 billion in overpayments to people not entitled to receive them in 2009, including $4 billion under a supplemental income program for the very poor, a government investigator said Tuesday.
In all, about 10 % of the payments made under the agency’s Supplemental Security Incomeprogram were improper, said Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr., the Social Security inspector general.
Error rates were much smaller for retirement, survivor and disability benefits, which make up the overwhelming majority of Social Security payments, O’Carroll told a congressional panel.
“By any standard, the scope of these problems is considerable,” said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee. “Regardless of whether a payment occurs because of simple error or outright fraud, improper payments harm Social Security programs in the long term, jeopardizing benefits for those who may need them in the future. They also cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year.”
With lawmakers working to reduce soaring budget deficits, President Barack Obamahas directed agencies to reduce improper payments. Boustany’s panel held a hearing on Social Security’s improper payments Tuesday. O’Carroll said the agency is working to improve accuracy, but more must be done.
What??? $6.5 BILLION dollars in overpayments? Why are disability payments and payments for the poor coming out of the Social Security fund? USA Today further reports:
In 2009, the Supplemental Security Income program made payments totaling $48.3 billion, including an estimated $4 billion in overpayments and $800 million in underpayments.
O’Carroll said most of the overpayments went to people who didn’t report all the property they owned.
Maybe if some of these people thought they might do some jail time, some of this nonsense and dishonesty would stop.
I don’t like social security payments going for anything but retirement. If social security is tapped for the poor, the disabled, and everything else mentioned in this article, it is no wonder that we expect it to go broke by 2037. Retired/retiring Americans deserve better than this. As the retirement dates get pushed up higher and higher and the country is held at a standstill legislatively over social security, it burns me to no end that people are cheating and stealing from the program.
I have a great deal of compassion for old people who can’t make ends meet, for whatever reason. However, the extra funds the govt. pays to them should not come from social security. Those indigent seniors should have to get assistance like everyone else does. Its a poverty problem, not a retirement problem.
Social Security is for retirees. If other funds are needed for other descriptors, get it from somewhere else.
I think the IG is still underestimating the problem.
I don’t know. I think maybe SSI needs to be turned over to the states and thus localities and treated like any other kind of poverty.
How does a national government keep track of SSI recipients? Send them their SS check and let the localities handle the welfare end of nit. SSI has no business being part of SS.
I bet that would work with Medicare and Medicaid too…….
I think medicaid is distributed by the states.
I just heard on TV that SSI is really welfare and not out of the SS fund. SS just distributes it, I suppose because in order to get SSI, which is just welfare, you have to be eligible for SS.
So why is it being said that it is SS freud? I am so confused. I bet that is the point though.
Moon, it is called “Social Security”, but when created in 1935, the offical Government Program name is: “Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Program”. It was designed, as you note, as a retirement program; payments to spouse and/or children if the worker died (as reflected on our Annual Social Security Statements), and payments if you became disabled either through work or no fault of your own. On the disability, please keep in mind back in 1935 there were not the private disability insurance programs offered by companies like we have today.
You do not have to be eligible for Social Security to receive Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI) which came around in 1974. It is not, repeat not, funded as part of Social Security – it is only administered by SSAdministration since the Feds had a process and procedure in place. Funded out of Treasury General Funds. That is part of the confusion around SSI since a lot of folks think it means “Social Security Income”. Heard that more than once.
It took the place of around half a dozen programs run by the Fed making payments to the aged who are in poverty; the blind; and those permanently and totally (100%) disabled. It was brought to us by the Nixon Administration. There is an income threshold per month (read that as at or below poverty level), plus other criteria.
To be eligible for SSI in terms of “aged”, you have to be 65+ and if single, have less than $2,000 in assets and if married, less than $3,000 in assets (coincidently, same levels to be eligible in Virginia for Medicaid). Disability must extend beyond 12 months, and you have a five year period to be able to apply. If disabled and working, you cannot make more than $1,000 gross pay a month, and if blind, it goes up to no more than around $1,650 a month. There are a variety of rules I’ll leave out for space purposes related to children.
Medicaid is run by the States, with each State, DC, and the Territories having income and asset restrictions. Virginia is one of the toughest elibility States (we are #46 out of 50). The Feds provided a portion of the funding, the States have a match. For Virginia, the Feds front 50% and the State matches 50%.
WELFARE: I so love the television talking heads that lump SSI into the Federal Welfare Programs. Nope, nada, zip – it is not “welfare” as those talking heads use the word.
If SSI is welfare, than the way they use the word could also be used in context with Social Security. The whole thing about the “Federal Assistance Programs To The Poor” grew out of the 30s after FDR signed the Social Security Act in 1935 since SS was only paying small amounts. Primarily, it was targeted to assistance programs for the poor. Food stamps (now known as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs) actually grew out of the Farm Assistance Programs – idea way back when was Farmers could bring their excess food into localities (think Farmers Markets) and exchange the food for the stamps…which still occurs today although “stamps” are history. The urbanization of American brought the “stamps” into grocery stores.
After displaying such a high level of efficiency in handling SS, the only rational next step is to hand over our health care system to them! It’s gonna be awesome!!
Thanks Raymond.
I am not sure I am straight yet. Is ‘welfare’ a word that shouldn’t be used?
Doesn’t some disability come from social security, that isn’t income based?
Why isn’t SSI something states distribute? What is the reasoning to keep it federally distributed?
Disability is part of the Social Security program. I wonder how many of the overpayments arose from the eligibiligty determination process — paying benefits to someone who is later overturned in appeals?
Unemployment Insurance is also under the Social Security Act.
I don’t think anything should come out of social security but social security funds.
Moon, “welfare” is a good word to use if in context as meant in the Constitution Preamble. Problem is, many of the talking heads use it in more of a derogatory sense as in “the welfare cycle”….people get into it, never get out of it, and want to stay because it is a free handout from the Feds.
Disability is part of SS…if related to work disability. And like SS, it is related to your credits earned and calculated similar to the retirement. Bubberella made a good point about the appeals – the Fed is lousy at making collections once overturned.
UI was also bundled into the 1935 Act since the method was created to collect the SS payroll deduction, so the folks back then decided FUTA could be collected at the same time.
Now, all these “promote the general welfare” programs are funded by the Fed in partnership with the States. Some are administred directly by the Fed like SS; the majority like SSI, UI, SNAP, and the other half dozen are so are managed and distributed by the State. Basically, the Fed makes the law and rules, States accept the Fed money and add their match and run the programs.
I call Social Security a “spider web” – it was the first law that really defined what the Constitution meant by “promoting the general welfare”. Unfortunately, since it established a method of tax collection, eligibility criteria, and method of payments it started getting other laws connected to it. When you get into the knickers of what is connected, it can boggle your mind since even some Federal Housing programs are tied into it. It’s a mess and why so many in politics toss up their hands when they try to figure out how to fix it. Too many programs in the spider web.