WASHINGTON (AP) — Since the U.S. Social Security Administration opened its books to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service, it has been able to stop and recover more than $31 million in improper Social Security payments to dead people.
“These results are just the tip of the iceberg,” Assistant Treasury Secretary David Lebryk said in a news release.
As part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2021, Congress gave the Treasury Department temporary access to the SSA’s “Full Death Master File” for three years, from December 2023 through 2026. The SSA maintains the most complete federal database of individuals who have died and the The file contains more than 142 million records, dating back to 1899, according to the Ministry of Finance.
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The Treasury Department expects to recover more than $215 million during the three-year access period.
“Congress granting permanent access to the Full Death Master File will significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better protect taxpayer dollars,” Lebryk said.
The efforts have exposed areas where the government is preventing fraud, waste and abuse – which is also one of Donald Trump’s campaign promises.
The president-elect has appointed two business titans — Elon Musk and Vivek Rameswamy — to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a new nongovernmental task force appointed to find ways to lay off federal workers, cut programs and eliminate federal regulations. of what Trump calls his “Save America” agenda for his second term in the White House.
A representative of the Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the new administration would continue the effort or seek to make permanent the Treasury Department’s temporary access to the file.