The Treasury Department announced this week that it recovered more than $31 million in fraud and incorrect payments to deceased people within just five months of accessing the Social Security Administration's (SSA) federal deaths database.
the Ministry of Treasury Billions of payments are issued each year, including entitlement payments, state-administered federally funded payments, and other miscellaneous payments. Accidentally sending this and other funds to deceased people has been a long-standing problem within the federal government, according to the financial watchdog group OpenTheBooks.
In 2020, the Government Accountability Office estimated that during the first round of coronavirus stimulus checks, $1.4 billion was sent to the dead. In all three rounds of stimulus checks during the pandemic, nearly $3.6 billion went to the dead, according to OpenTheBooks.
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The SSA is the only government agency that has a database recording deaths of American citizens. In 2023, as part of the omnibus appropriations bill, Congress Grant access to the Department of the Treasury, on a temporary basis, to access the database to help prevent inappropriate payments to deceased persons. The interim basis is scheduled to expire in 2026.
A Social Security card sits next to checks from the U.S. Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C., on October 14, 2021. (Kevin Deitch/Getty Images)
“While this should have been a no-brainer for a long time, it is promising to see some taxpayer dollars being recovered through basic communications between executive agencies,” said John Hart, CEO of OpenTheBooks. “Often, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and this has led to trillions of dollars in improper payments.”
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Hart blamed the nearly $4 billion in coronavirus stimulus payments sent to dead people in the United States Internal Revenue Service Failing to check the SSA's fatality database.
He also noted that, in addition to improper payments through the stimulus check program, the SBA also sent more than an additional $3 billion to the dead in forgivable loans “to entities on the Treasury Department’s ‘do not pay’ list.”
“Giving Congress permanent access to the Complete Death Master File will significantly reduce fraud, improve the integrity of the program, and better protect taxpayer dollars,” Assistant Treasury Secretary David LeBrick said. (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutson)
“Today's news is a step in the right direction, but we still have miles to go before we break even,” Hart said.
After news of the refunded payments was announced, Assistant Treasury Secretary David LeBrick noted that the results were “just the tip of the iceberg.”
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“Giving Congress permanent access to the full death master file will significantly reduce fraud, improve the integrity of the program, and better protect taxpayer dollars,” he said.
