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Supplemental Security Income: SSA Efforts Fall Short in Correcting Erroneous Payments to Prisoners

HEHS-96-152 Published: Aug 30, 1996. Publicly Released: Aug 30, 1996.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO determined whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) is making erroneous supplemental security income (SSI) payments to prisoners in county and local jail systems.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Social Security Administration In order to identify SSI recipients who have been erroneously paid in prior years, the Commissioner of Social Security should direct SSA field offices to obtain information from county and local jails on former prisoners. SSA should then process this information to: (1) determine if it made erroneous payments to any of these former prisoners; (2) establish overpayments for the ones it paid; and (3) attempt to recover all erroneous payments.
Closed – Not Implemented
SSA has terminated all work on these recommendations. According to SSA officials, SSA would prefer to concentrate on preventing overpayments, rather than expending resources to pursue past overpayments. However, SSA believed it has identified some prior overpayments because, as part of the Incentive Payment Agreements, prisons and jails provide SSA with a census of all inmates in their facilities.

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Topics

Correctional facilitiesCriminalsData collectionImprisonmentEligibility determinationsErroneous paymentsIncome maintenance programsPrisonersProposed legislationSocial security benefitsSupplemental security income