Social Security Administration (SSA) Reported $7.9 Billion in Improper Payments in FY 2012

The SSA needs to focus on "program integrity," a polite
term for reducing fraud and payment errors, the agency's inspector general told
Congress. Reducing improper payments is one of the challenges facing the next
SSA commissioner, Patrick O'Carroll, Jr., the agency's inspector general, told
the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security on April 26. In fiscal
year 2012, the Social Security Administration reported $4.7 billion in improper
payments in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a 9.2 percent
improper payment rate. (SSI is funded by general tax revenues, not payroll
taxes. It helps elderly, blind, and/or disabled people who are poor.) SSA
reported $3.2 billion in the Old-Age, Survivors' and Disability Insurance
(OASDI) program, a 0.4 percent improper payment rate. That's a total of $7.9
billion, and it includes some underpayments as well as overpayments.

Source/more: CNS News