Posted on 02/22/2017 3:31:53 AM PST by gattaca
The Social Security Administration paid $1 billion in benefits to individuals who did not have a Social Security Number (SSN), according to a new audit.
The agency’s inspector general found errors in the government’s documentation for representative payees, otherwise known as individuals who receive retirement or disability payments on behalf of another person who is incapable of managing the benefits themselves.
The audit released Friday found thousands of cases where there was no SSN on file.
Over the last decade, the agency paid $1 billion to 22,426 representative payees who "did not have an SSN, and SSA had not followed its policy to retain the paper application."
“Furthermore, unless it takes corrective action, we estimate SSA will pay about $182.5 million in benefits, annually, to representative payees who do not have an SSN or paper application supporting their selection,” the inspector general said.
The inspector general also found the agency paid $853.1 million in benefits since 2004 to individuals who had been terminated as representative payees by the agency.
The inspector general said the errors occurred because the agency did not keep paper applications supporting an individual’s case to receive benefits on behalf of another and did not update its system if their status was terminated.
Only six percent of representative payees had SSNs that were properly recorded, based on the audit’s sample of 100 beneficiaries.
Government benefits are also going to illegal aliens through the representative payee system. 17 percent of representative payees in the sample did not have an SSN recorded because they were undocumented noncitizens, the inspector general said.
Illegal aliens without SSNs are allowed to receive benefits from the government when acting as representatives for their minor children.
In response to the audit, the SSA said it switched to a new Electronic Representative Payee System last year, and transferring representative payee information “may have resulted in applications showing as terminated or not selected.”
The government defended the issuance of benefits to noncitizens and persons without an SSN.
“Representative payees play a significant role in many beneficiaries’ lives,” the SSA said. “We have approximately 5.7 million representative payees managing annual benefits for approximately 8 million beneficiaries. When appointing representative payees, we adhere to guidance in the Social Security Act (the Act).”
“Specific to this audit, the Act permits us to appoint, in certain circumstances, an undocumented alien, or applicant who resides outside the United States without a Social Security number (SSN) to serve as payee,” the agency said. “Specifically, the Act states we should verify a person’s SSN (or employer identification number) in our investigation of the payee applicant. However, the Act does not state that the applicant must have an SSN to serve as a payee.”
The “absence of an SSN is not a criterion preventing an individual from serving as payee,” the agency added.
This money could build the wall.
I’m so sick of seeing anyone but American’s being favored.
HOW THE HELL IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE??
These are principally SSI payments (supplemental security income) which, although administered by SSA, are paid directly from the general fund. DIRECT tax dollars aside from the FICA payments. It is nothing more than direct welfare and income redistribution.
I received a wake up call this week.. I got a facebook message from a relative.. whom I haven’t seen in 30 years.. blah blah.. how are you? Then this.. well everyone I know over the age of 40 is on disability... I sent a message back saying, well know you know 1who works, your welcome. Ya know some days it physically hurts to go to work, but I go. Even if it’s only partially true, that’s a lot of sponges.
“...Illegal aliens without SSNs are allowed to receive benefits from the government when acting as representatives for their minor children.”
or stated by the man who left his own children destitute requiring support from anyone but himself:
“From each according to his ability (to work and make money), to each according to his need (just because).”
In related backstory, did you know that many illegals work under false SSNs? Then, when it comes time to retire and collect, they claim and receive credit for their earnings under the false SSN?
Many times the SSN the illegal was using is that of their anchor baby or other close relative. They can cause much hassle for their family member. There is no standard way to handle these situations. It is every SSA employee for himself on these decisions.
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about REAL money.
Supposedly attributed to Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, R-Illinois. And that was when our national debt was hovering somewhere around $270 billion, the national budget was about $65 billion. (Unadjusted dollars)
There is no way it is this low...
“HOW THE HELL IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE??”
Corruption, incompetence, bleeding heart’s in varying combinations. Backed with full knowledge that you have a job for life in the Politburo.
Trump needs to break the Federal Unions!
ping
That’s a likelihood. Years ago before I retired, I spent a lot of time researching just exactly got paid out under all the numerous programs and investigated SSA’s own site and what they revealed back then.
At the time, over 25% of SSAs payments went to SSDI and SSI.
SSDI being disability for those who qualified for SS payments and those minors and people who otherwise didn’t qualify for SS payments because they hadn’t worked enough quarters. In the case of SSI, the money comes directly out of the general tax fund, and SSA administers it.
I’m sure by now that 25% has grown quite a bit, both for SSDI (those unemployed and not working and are ‘now disabled’ because of Obama’s economy) and SSI.
Somebody needs to go to jail.
The folks who authorized and sent those checks need to pay back the money they stole. If we did that more often we wouldn’t be $20 Trillion in the hole. We let people defraud us and steal from us without consequences and then wonder why everything is F’ed up.
If you read the article, it is mostly about Social Security administrative procedure and foulups than anything else.
Infuriating. I know a few as well. We can only hope it gets fixed. Every one of Trump’s cabinet picks appear to be no-nonsense-get-sh*t-done type people.
We are in good hands.
If you are an officer in the military and a wrench goes missing, you pay for it. Why should a libtards buearaucrat be different.
Damn these Washington bureaucrats to hell. That’s our money they are pissing away on their feel-good agendas.
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