Skip to main content

Supplemental Security Income: Increased Receipt and Reporting of Child Support Could Reduce Payments

HEHS-99-11 Published: Jan 12, 1999. Publicly Released: Jan 12, 1999.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

GAO provided information on: (1) opportunities for increasing the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) single-parent families receiving child support and for improving the reporting of such support to the Social Security Administration (SSA); (2) the potential for reducing SSI payments by increasing the extent to which SSI children in single-parent families are served by the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program and have support collected for them and the extent to which support collected by CSE programs is reported by custodial parents to SSA.

Recommendations

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Matter Status Comments
Congress may want to amend the Social Security Act to require that all single parents applying for or receiving SSI benefits on behalf of children under age 18 be required to cooperate with CSE services, unless they have good cause not to do so. Congress also will need to consider how best to enforce such a requirement.
Closed – Not Implemented
As of September 2005, Congress has not adopted this provision and the key authorizing committees do not have it under consideration.

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Health and Human Services The Commissioner of Social Security and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should take steps to implement a cost-effective method for ensuring that data on CSE collections for children receiving SSI are made available to SSA and used in making eligibility determinations. This may include seeking legislative changes to allow SSA access to states' data on child support collections.
Closed – Implemented
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took steps to implement a cost-effective method to ensure that child support enforcement collection data for children receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was made available to the Social Security Administration (SSA) and was used to determine eligibility. HHS' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) engaged in discussions with SSA about potential sources of child support data, the usefulness of the data to determine families' actual receipt of child support, and whether these sources would prove cost-effective to pursue. Although access to states' automated child support payment records by SSA is not feasible, OCSE and SSA worked together to grant SSA real-time query access to other data--the National Directory of New Hires--which facilitates determining SSI eligibility. OCSE also worked with SSA to determine the feasibility of access to the Federal Case Registry of Child Support Orders, but concluded it would not be cost effective because it provided data only on when a support order was in place. Considerable effort would be needed to determine whether an actual payment--which would offset SSI payments--had been made to an individual.
Social Security Administration The Commissioner of Social Security and the Secretary of Health and Human Services should take steps to implement a cost-effective method for ensuring that data on CSE collections for children receiving SSI are made available to SSA and used in making eligibility determinations. This may include seeking legislative changes to allow SSA access to states' data on child support collections.
Closed – Implemented
The Social Security Administration (SSA) took steps to implement a cost-effective method to ensure that child support collection data for children receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI). As part of a broad effort to increase its access to all forms of data, including child support data, SSA submitted a proposal to the Congress, enacted as part of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, which deems SSA's privacy standards sufficient to meet privacy concerns related to data access. This helps ensure SSA's access to some child support data sources, although it does not offer access to states' automated child support enforcement systems. Although SSA cannot access these state systems, SSA and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) worked together to grant SSA real-time query access to other data--the National Directory of New Hires--which facilitates determining SSI eligibility. SSA also engaged in discussions with OCSE about potential sources of child support data, the usefulness of the data to determine families' actual receipt of child support, and whether these sources would prove cost effective to pursue. In addition, SSA submitted a proposal to OMB that would allow SSA access to the Federal Case Registry of Child Support Orders. However, it was ultimately determined that using this source would not be a cost effective method because too much follow-up work would be required to clearly determine the support payment amounts that would be used to offset SSI benefits.

Full Report

GAO Contacts

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Child support paymentsEligibility determinationsstate relationsIncome maintenance programsInteragency relationsMedicaidOverpaymentsReporting requirementsSingle parentsState programsWelfare benefitsSupplemental security income