IG: $2 Billion in Benefits for 25,000 People Wrongly Awarded
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In a report that was requested by the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in January, Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll Jr., found 44 Social Security administrative law judges who approved the vast majority of their claimants, over 85 percent of cases.
Taking a sample of the cases approved by those judges and referring questionable awards to Social Security’s own quality monitor, the inspector general extrapolated that those judges accounted for nearly 25,000 beneficiaries whose awards may have been granted improperly.
Over the past seven years, the inspector general estimated, Social Security has spent $2 billion on those disability recipients and will “continue paying approximately $273 million to these same beneficiaries over the next 12 months.”
Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, criticized the Social Security Administration in a statement accompanying the release, saying that its “failure to conduct timely medical eligibility reviews has resulted in rubber-stamped decisions that have and will continue to cost taxpayers billions in improper awards. In failing to take meaningful disciplinary action at the Social Security Administration, even after the most egregious cases of mismanagement, taxpayers are left to wonder — who is looking after their tax dollars.”
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