Washington, D.C – The US government took back more than $31 million in Social Security payments that were sent to dead people without their permission. On Wednesday, an official said that this was “just the tip of the iceberg” of what the government would do to collect these funds.
As part of the omnibus spending bill in 2021, Congress gave the Department of Treasury temporary access to the Social Security Administration’s “Full Death Master File” for three years. The money was then returned as part of a five-month pilot program. The Treasury says that the SSA has the most complete government database of people who have died. The database has more than 142 million records going back to 1899.
For the three years starting in December 2023 and ending in December 2026, the Treasury thinks it will get back more than $215 million.
Government of the United States Fiscal Assistant Secretary David Lebryk said in a news release, “These results are just the tip of the iceberg.” He asked Congress to let the Treasury have full access to the master file, saying that this would “enhance program integrity, cut down on fraud, and better protect taxpayer dollars.”
This work has shown where the government is stopping waste, fraud, and abuse, which is also one of Donald Trump’s campaign vows.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are two of the most successful businesspeople in the world. Trump has chosen them to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new nongovernmental task force whose job it is to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs, and reduce federal regulations. This is all part of what Trump calls his “Save America” plan for his second term in the White House.
A member of the Trump transition team did not reply right away to a request for comment on whether the new administration would keep working on these issues or try to make the Treasury’s temporary access to the file permanent.
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