The Social Security Administration has failed to heed recommendations on stopping improper payments, according to its own oversight division.
In a new report, the SSA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) scolded the government agency for failing to implement proposals to help tackle tens of billions of dollars in incorrect payments, which are either underpayments—when a beneficiary is paid too little—or overpayments—when a beneficiary is paid too much.
From fiscal years 2015 through 2022, the SSA is estimated to have made nearly $72 billion in improper payments, the majority of which were overpayments. By the end of FY 2023, the SSA had an uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion.
“SSA must be a responsible steward of the funds entrusted to its care by minimizing the risk of making improper payments and recovering overpayments when they occur,” the report reads. “SSA has not implemented many of our recommendations, and other actions have not fully addressed our findings.”
The report details that the SSA has yet to implement several recommendations related to its processes for recovering overpayments and issuing underpayments. When first prompted by the OIG to address the issue in 2018, the SSA responded with plans to implement a “comprehensive Debt Management Product,” but this was halted in 2024 due to a lack of funding.
Newsweek reached out to the SSA via email for comment.
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“Improper payments have been a long-standing challenge for SSA. While the Agency has taken actions to address this challenge, it needs to do more, and OIG’s recommendations can guide the Agency as it determines those corrective actions,” Michelle L. Anderson, Assistant Inspector General for Audit and Acting Inspector General, said in a statement.
“Without better access to data, increased automation, systems modernization, and policy or legislative changes, improper payments will continue to be a major challenge for SSA into the future.”
Another recent OIG report found that the government agency made more than $1.1 billion in incorrect payments to a sample of 528,000 benefit recipients as of February 2024. The average processing time for an improper payment was 698 days.
In an effort to ease the burden of overpayments on beneficiaries—many of whom have been incorrectly paid through no fault of their own—the government agency announced it would begin collecting 10 percent of a person’s total monthly Social Security benefit to recover an overpayment rather than 100 percent as it previously did.
“Social Security is taking a critically important step towards our goal of ensuring our overpayment policies are fair, equitable, and do not unduly harm anyone,” said Commissioner Martin O’Malley. “It’s unconscionable that someone would find themselves facing homelessness or unable to pay bills because Social Security withheld their entire payment for recovery of an overpayment.”
In a previous statement to Newsweek, an SSA spokesperson said: “Social Security is required by law to adjust benefits or recover debts when we establish that someone received payments to which they are not entitled and an overpayment occurs. We must maintain our responsibilities to taxpayers to be good stewards of the trust funds.”
