Need to Strengthen Social Security's Beneficiary Reporting Requirements and Enforcement Authority

摘要

As of September 1984, retired and disabled beneficiaries and their dependents or survivors owed the Social Security Administration (SSA) about $2 billion because they had been paid more than they were entitled. This represented about 1.4 million overpayments. About 60 percent of such overpayments, representing two-thirds of all overpayment dollars, are caused by beneficiaries who misreport, report late, or do not report events that would reduce or eliminate benefits. Most beneficiaries comply with reporting requirements. If SSA more fully exercised the penalty authority it has and this authority was extended to all circumstances that can affect payments, GAO believes that overpayments could be reduced and some of their cost shifted to the noncomplying beneficiaries.