Tip Of The Iceberg | Nationwide | Social Security Fraud

Success is very dependent on the quality of the information you get. Action based on reliable data not only makes it easier to execute decisions but lowers the rate of failure. After all, if key, accurate information is missing, decision making is reduced to nothing more than guessing. On January 15, 2025, the Treasury Department announced that over the last five months, it had successfully prevented and recovered $31 million in Social Security payments that were marked…for dead people.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) maintains the largest collection of data on people who have died, which includes 142 million records that date back as far as 1899 – a database that has not been readily available to other government departments. But effective December 27, 2023, Congress has granted the Treasury temporary access to the Full Death Master File for a period of three years. The integration of SSA’s high-quality death data resulted not only in improved timeliness and quality of data, but a 139% increase in the accuracy of payments.

The recovery of $31 million is just the tip of the iceberg. By tapping into these records, the government will significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars. The Treasury projects that it will recover more than $215 million during its three-year access period. Imagine what would happen if Congress granted permanent access to the Full Death Master File?

Great job by the Social Security Administration, Treasury Department, and the U.S. Congress working together to combat fraud.

Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “US recovers $31 million in federal payments to dead people” published by AP News on January 16, 2025

The U.S. government clawed back more than $31 million in federal payments that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that one official said Wednesday was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

The money was reclaimed as part of a five-month pilot program after Congress gave the Department of Treasury temporary access to the Social Security Administration ’s “Full Death Master File” for three years as part of the omnibus appropriations bill in 2021. The SSA maintains the most complete federal database of individuals who have died, and the file contains more than 142 million records, which go back to 1899, according to the Treasury.