Improper payments—those made by the federal government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason—are a significant problem. In fiscal year 2019, government-wide improper payment estimates totaled about $175 billion. The law requires certain agencies to develop and monitor ways to reduce improper payments and take corrective actions to target their root causes. However,...

This report provides an update on the federal government’s fiscal condition at the end of FY 2019 and the unsustainable path it is on if policies don’t change. Among its findings: Publicly held debt rose to 79% of GDP. The Congressional Budget Office and this new report both project it will continue to grow Interest on the debt is the fastest growing item in the budget; it is projected to b...

In fiscal year 2019, agencies across government made an estimated $175 billion in improper payments—payments that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount. But this total comes from individual agency estimates, which aren’t all reliable. We also looked at inspectors general reports on agencies’ compliance with a law intended to address improper payments. The law has se...

How much revenue does the U.S. government collect? What does it cost to run the government for a year? How and where is the money spent? The Financial Report of the U.S. Government may have a lot of these answers, including information about taxes and major program costs. We audit the financial statements in that report each year, but we haven't yet been able to determine if the statements fairl...

Congress approved more than $120 billion in additional funding for relief and recovery efforts following the 2017 disaster season. Agencies were required to submit their plans for ensuring this money was spent efficiently and effectively to Congress and others in accordance with guidance developed by the Office of Management and Budget. We reviewed plans submitted by 6 agencies along with OMB’...

This report provides an update on the nation's fiscal health as of the end of FY 2018, and describes its likely fiscal future if policies don’t change. Among its findings: The federal government’s current fiscal path is unsustainable The federal deficit increased to $779 billion—and will reach $1 trillion in the next few years for the first time since 2012 Publicly held debt was 78% of G...

How much revenue does the U.S. government collect? What does it cost to run the government for a year? How and where is the money spent? The Financial Report of the U.S. Government may have a lot of these answers, including information about taxes and major program costs. But we audit the financial statements in that report each year, to see whether they fairly present the government's finances...

The Improper Payments Information Act of 2002, as amended (IPIA), defines “significant” improper payments as improper payments in the preceding fiscal year that may have exceeded either (1) 1.5 percent of program outlays and $10 million or (2) $100 million (regardless of the improper payment rate). GAO found that the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Treasury (Treasury), Just...

Over half of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) agencies were reported by their inspectors general (IG) as noncompliant with one or more criteria under the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA) for fiscal years 2016 and 2017. Nine CFO Act agencies have been reported as noncompliant in one or more programs every year since the implementation of IPERA in f...

This report provides an update on the nation's fiscal health as of the end of fiscal year 2017, and describes its likely fiscal future if policies don’t change. Among its findings: The federal government’s current fiscal path is unsustainable. Publicly held debt was 76 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2017 and it will surpass its historical high of 106 percent within 14 to 22 years. ...

The six agencies GAO reviewed reported taking various approaches related to key components of estimating improper payments—shown in the figure below—for 10 selected programs, which collectively reported outlays of over $2.5 trillion for fiscal year 2017.Key Components in the Development of Improper Payment EstimatesSample selection. Eight of the 10 programs GAO reviewed reported using statist...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. GAO’s report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal years 2017 and 2016 underscores that mu...

GAO's review of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) agencies' fiscal years 2014 through 2016 agency financial reports (AFR) and performance and accountability reports (PAR) found that these agencies generally adhered to the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) improper payment risk assessment reporting directives. However, GAO found instances of nonadherence, including the fol...

In fiscal year 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) assessed its advance premium tax credit (PTC) program as susceptible to significant improper payments. CMS instituted a qualitative method for assessing the susceptibility of its program that was consistent with requirements, including assessing each of the nine required qualitati...

Five years after the implementation of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA), 15 of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) agencies were reported by their inspectors general (IG) as noncompliant under IPERA for fiscal year 2015. The programs associated with these 15 agencies accounted for $132 billion (or about 96 percent) of the reported $136.7 billion...

The federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. Federal spending continues to outpace revenue—by $587 billion in 2016—and, absent policy changes, the structural gap between revenues and spending puts the federal government on an unsustainable long-term fiscal path. Federal policymakers face economic, security, and social challenges requiring difficult policy choices, but a long-te...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. GAO’s report on the U.S. government’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal years 2016 and 2015 underscores that mu...

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in coordination with the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), developed the Do Not Pay (DNP) working system as a data matching service for agencies to use in preventing improper payments, but GAO found that the DNP working system offers either partial or no access to three of the six databases required by the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery I...

Over the last 10 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has reported that improper payment rates for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have ranged from an estimated 5.8 percent to 3.2 percent of all payments, likely reflecting, in part, certain policy changes and calculation methods. Many factors affect low-income households' eligibility for SNAP and the amount of bene...

For fiscal year 2014, 15 of the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act (CFO Act) agency inspectors general (IG) determined that their agencies did not comply with criteria in the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA). This is the largest number of CFO Act agencies reported as noncompliant under IPERA since the requirement for IGs to report on their agencies' compliance was implem...

Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to offer beneficiaries a private plan alternative to the original program and are paid a predetermined monthly amount by Medicare for each enrolled beneficiary. These payments are risk adjusted to reflect each enrolled beneficiary's health status and projected spending for Medicare-covered servic...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible and to make difficult decisions to address the federal government’s fiscal challenges, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Overall, significant progress has been...

A number of strategies, including implementing preventive controls and addressing GAO's prior recommendations, can help agencies reduce improper payments, which have been a persistent, government-wide issue. The improper payment estimate, attributable to 124 programs across 22 agencies in fiscal year 2014, was $124.7 billion, up from $105.8 billion in fiscal year 2013. The almost $19 billion incre...

Government-wide, improper payment estimates totaled $124.7 billion in fiscal year 2014, a significant increase of approximately $19 billion from the prior year's estimate of $105.8 billion. The estimated improper payments for fiscal year 2014 were attributable to 124 programs spread among 22 agencies. The reported government-wide error rate was 4.5 percent of program outlays in fiscal year 2014 co...

The executive branch and Congress have made progress in addressing the approximately 440 actions across 180 areas that GAO identified in its past annual reports. These issues span the range of government services and programs, from the Medicare and Medicaid programs to transportation programs to weapon systems acquisitions. As of November 19, 2014, 29 percent of these actions were addressed, 44 pe...

The five agencies GAO reviewed used a variety of approaches to estimate and report improper payments related to Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013 (DRAA) funding, in accordance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance. Specifically, these agencies, which received approximately 94 percent of the $50 billion provided by DRAA, used various approaches regarding the following:Estimate...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible and to make difficult decisions to address the federal government’s fiscal challenges, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Further, when fully and effectively im...

The Defense Health Agency (DHA), the agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) responsible for administering the military health program known as TRICARE, uses a methodology for measuring TRICARE improper payments that is less comprehensive than the methodology used to measure improper payments in Medicare, the federal health care program for the elderly and certain disabled individuals. Both...

The Department of Energy (DOE) developed a process to assess its programs for risks of improper payments, but its assessments do not fully evaluate risk. To comply with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA), in fiscal year 2011, DOE directed its programs to develop risk assessments using eight qualitative risk factors, such as recent major changes in program funding, a...

By implementing new controls since the mid-2000s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) improved its ability to detect improper and potentially fraudulent payments, but GAO identified continued weaknesses in the agency's validation of Social Security numbers, among other things. As of August 2014, FEMA stated that it had provided over $1.4 billion in Hurricane Sandy assistance through its...

For fiscal year 2013, the offices of inspector general (OIG) for 13 of the 24 Chief Financial Officer's Act (CFO Act) agencies reported that their agencies complied with all of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA) criteria that were applicable to their agencies. The OIGs for 10 agencies reported that their agencies did not satisfy at least one of the specified criteri...

GAO's prior work on federal data transparency has found persistent challenges related to the quality and completeness of the spending data agencies report to USAspending.gov. For example, GAO reported in June 2014 that roughly $619 billion in assistance awards were not properly reported. In addition, few reported awards—between 2 and 7 percent—contained information that was fully consistent wi...

Federal agencies reported an estimated $105.8 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2013, a decrease from the prior year revised estimate of $107.1 billion. The fiscal year 2013 estimate was attributable to 84 programs spread among 18 agencies. The specific programs included in the government-wide estimate may change from year to year. For example, with Office of Management and Budget (OMB)...

The Railroad Retirement Board's (RRB) policies and procedures for processing total and permanent (T&P) disability benefit claims do not adequately ensure that claimants meet program eligibility requirements. To find a railroad worker eligible for T&P benefits, RRB makes an independent determination of disability using the same general criteria that the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses to...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees Medicare, has made progress improving improper payment prevention and recoupment efforts in the Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) program, but further actions are needed.Provider enrollment. CMS has implemented certain provider enrollment screening procedures authorize...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible and to make difficult decisions to address the federal government's fiscal challenges, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information--both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Overall, significant progress has been ma...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) receives death reports from multiple sources, including state vital records agencies (states), family members, and other federal agencies to create its set of death records. In accordance with the Social Security Act (Act), SSA shares its full set of death data with certain agencies that pay federally-funded benefits, for the purpose of ensuring the accurac...

On the basis of analyzing Social Security Administration (SSA) data on individuals who were Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries as of December 2010 and earnings data from the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH), GAO estimates that SSA made $1.29 billion in potential cash benefit overpayments to about 36,000 individuals as of January 2013. The exact number of individuals who received imprope...

Three long-standing major impediments prevented GAO from expressing an opinion on the U.S. government's 2012 accrual-based consolidated financial statements: (1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DOD), (2) the federal government's inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal entities, and (3) the federal...

Since 2007, the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers various programs for farmers that help support farm incomes and provide disaster assistance, has established procedures for preventing improper payments to deceased individuals, including, on a quarterly basis, matching payments to program participants with the Social Security Administration's (SSA) dat...

The Department of Defense (DOD) did not adequately implement key provisions of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA) and the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requirements for fiscal year 2011. Most important, GAO found that DOD's improper payment estimates reported in its fiscal year 2011 Agency Financial Report...

GAO found examples of improper payments and indicators of potential fraud in the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program, which could be attributed, in part, to oversight and data-access issues. GAO found examples of claimants' receiving overlapping FECA and unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, which may be allowable under certain circumstances, but could also be erroneous. GAO also fo...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) methodology for estimating a national improper payment rate for the Medicaid program is statistically sound. However, CMS's procedures did not provide for updating state data used in its methodology to recognize significant corrections or adjustments after the cutoff date. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that federal agencies e...

Medicare Program: CMS has not met GAO's criteria to have the Medicare program removed from the High-Risk List. For example, although CMS has made progress in measuring and reducing improper payment rates in different parts of the program, it has yet to demonstrate sustained progress in lowering the rates. Because the size of Medicare relative to other programs leads to aggregate improper payments...

To operate as effectively and efficiently as possible and to make difficult decisions to address the federal government’s fiscal challenges, Congress, the administration, and federal managers must have ready access to reliable and complete financial and performance information—both for individual federal entities and for the federal government as a whole. Even though significant progress...

In fiscal year 2010, 117,000 individuals received concurrent cash benefit payments from the Disability Insurance (DI) and Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs of more than $850 million, which is allowable in certain circumstances under current program authority. While these individuals represented less than 1 percent of the total beneficiaries of both programs, the cash benefits they received tota...

Federal agencies reported an estimated $115.3 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2011, a decrease of $5.3 billion from the prior year reported estimate of $120.6 billion. According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the $115.3 billion estimate was attributable to 79 programs spread among 17 agencies. Ten programs accounted for about $107 billion or 93 percent of the total estim...

Although ACF has established a process to calculate a national improper payment estimate for the Foster Care program, the estimate is not based on a statistically valid methodology and consequently does not reflect a reasonably accurate estimate of the extent of Foster Care improper payments. In addition, the estimate deals with only about one-third of the federal expenditures for Foster Care, and...

Federal agencies reported an estimated $115.3 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2011, a decrease of $5.3 billion from the prior year reported estimate of $120.6 billion. The $115.3 billion estimate was attributable to 79 programs spread among 17 agencies. Ten programs accounted for about $107 billion or 93 percent of the total estimated improper payments agencies reported for fiscal year...

Overlap and fragmentation among government programs or activities can be harbingers of unnecessary duplication. In this report we include 81 areas for consideration drawn from GAO's prior and ongoing work. We present 34 areas where agencies, offices, or initiatives have similar or overlapping objectives or provide similar services to the same populations; or where government missions are fragmente...