Report: Social Security Scandal Uncovered, $571M Of Taxpayer Money Is Gone
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If there’s one thing that drives President Donald Trump nuts, it’s giving taxpayer money to people who don’t deserve it.
And he’ll be even more distressed to learn that over a half-billion dollars has accidentally been paid out to individuals who didn’t deserve a cent of it.
That’s right. It was all one giant mistake, and you paid for it!
We all know that government spending can spin out of control but generally, government offices can at least tell you what the money was for.
Even if you don’t agree with the amount of cash spent, even if you’re a little angry at shelling out for something you feel was unnecessary, it still makes at least some sense.
This, however, is just entirely unacceptable.
According to a highly disturbing report just released by the Office of the Inspector General, the Social Security Administration handed out a whopping $571 million in disability benefits.
But it was all one giant mistake:
“The Social Security Administration improperly disbursed an estimated $571 million in disability benefits to people who had already returned to work, according to a government audit report.
Of the overpayments, nearly $201 million of the improperly disbursed benefits checks was due to the administration’s slow processing, and almost $371 million was the fault of the beneficiaries who didn’t complete paperwork on time, the Office of the Inspector General wrote in a report released Tuesday.”
Well, that’s just great. People often joke about the administrative incompetence of government agencies, but this takes the take.
If you aren’t familiar with this particular process, those receiving disability benefits from the SSA are granted a trial work period before they stop getting payments.
Recipients must then report back to the government when they start working so the SSA can conduct “continuing disability reviews” to figure out if the individual should keep getting benefits.
But in many cases, the SSA took an average of 155 days to process legitimate earnings reports – that’s almost half a year! – so taxpayer money kept flowing out the door.
In one outrageous example, someone on disability reported in November 2014 she had returned to work, and the SSA didn’t verify her employment until June 2015, and didn’t halt disability payments until September 2015.
And when they found out, that individual wasn’t even required to return the $7,823 she’d unfairly received.
Then there are instances where the SSA overpaid an estimated number of beneficiaries where they were told the individual was receiving money from a job, but did nothing to act on that information.
If this is how our government agencies are operating, President Trump needs to step in and fix it. Rapidly. We just can’t allow this insanity to continue!