Social Security Administration officials shelled out almost $42 million to about 500 dead people in three states, Office of the Inspector General audits showed in March.
The SSA identified 160 individuals who had possibly died, with 57 from Michigan from 1971 through 2010 — and 103 from Maryland from 1979 through 2015, the IOG reported. Around $16.9 million in payments were issued to 145 individuals who reportedly died in these states. The remaining 15 were alive.
The Daily Caller noted that in one instance, a woman got payments for someone who’d died in 2000, using the proceeds for herself. The cheat pleaded guilty to theft and had to pay nearly $170,000 back to SSA.
Another person also received Social Security benefits under the deceased person’s record since 1997. The beneficiary had died in 1974, the Daily Caller reported.
Meanwhile, a Texas audit found nearly $25 million in Social Security payments were given to 336 people and 18 representative payees who died in the state prior or during 2016.
Nearly 43,000 Texas non-beneficiaries were also not listed in SSA’s death records as well.
SSA stopped handing out benefits to 95 of the 145 deceased beneficiaries in either Michigan or Maryland as of Jan. 9.
SSA conducted Michigan and Maryland’s audit in Baltimore between November 2017 and January while Texas’s report was done between February 2018 and January in Dallas.
According to Forbes, since 2004, 20 large federal agencies admit paying out $1.2 trillion in improper payments. Last year, these improper payments totaled $140 billion.
Forbes reported Social Security recipients were overpaid by $10 billion, adding that six million active Social Security numbers belong to people aged 112 and older, though there’s only 40 people in the world aged 112 and over.
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