The Social Security Administration (SSA) approves organizational payees—such as nursing homes or non-profits that manage the Social Security benefits of individuals unable to do so on their own—by assessing a range of suitability factors, such as whether the organizations have adequate staff to manage benefits for multiple individuals. However, GAO found that SSA's policy does not specify how

Disparities in income and wealth among older households have become greater over the past 3 decades, according to GAO's analysis of Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) data. GAO divided older households into five groups (quintiles) based on their income and wealth. Each year of data in the analysis, and, thus, each quintile, included different sets of households over time. Average income and wealth

Annual reports on the status of Social Security and Medicare trust funds are developed through a collaboration between agency officials and trustees, which include relevant Cabinet members and public members nominated by the President (if confirmed). Offices of the Chief Actuaries from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) submit data and

Remote identity proofing is the process federal agencies and other entities use to verify that the individuals who apply online for benefits and services are who they claim to be. To perform remote identity proofing, agencies that GAO reviewed rely on consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) to conduct a procedure known as knowledge-based verification. This type of verification involves asking applican

In February 2018, GAO identified seven open priority recommendations for the Social Security Administration (SSA). Since then, SSA has implemented three of those recommendations by, among other things, developing a plan to include physician-assisted fraud as part of its broader efforts to assess disability fraud risk. As of January 2019, SSA has four remaining open priority recommendations from t

GAO's review of studies and interviews with employment and retirement experts identified 17 countries with aging populations and national pension systems similar to the Social Security program in the United States. These countries also have arrangements that allow workers to reduce their working hours as they transition into retirement, referred to as "phased retirement." Phased retirement arrang

This correspondence updates estimates on the percentage of households aged 55 and over with selected financial resources, using the most recent data. The estimates were originally published in a 2015 GAO report, <i>Retirement Security: Most Households Approaching Retirement Have Low Savings</i> (GAO-15-419). To produce the estimates for the 2015 report, GAO analyzed retirement savings data from t

Fundamental changes over the past 40 years have led to various risks and challenges for the three main pillars supporting the U.S. retirement system. For example, current projections indicate that by 2034, the Old-Age and Survivors trust fund for Social Security's retirement program--the first pillar--will only be sufficient to pay 77 percent of scheduled benefits, due in part to the aging of the

Use of an alternate consumer price index (CPI) for calculating cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) would create tradeoffs regarding individual benefits and the costs for federal retirement programs, such as Social Security. Using historical and assumed future inflation, GAO analyzed the effect on retirement benefits and program costs that could result from switching to an alternate CPI from the ind

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has improved its management of information technology (IT) acquisitions and operations by addressing 14 of the 15 recommendations that GAO has made to the agency. For example, (1) Incremental development. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has emphasized the need for agencies to deliver IT investments in smaller increments to reduce risk and deliver