Protecting Beneficiaries from the Harm of Improper Payments — Hearing (October 18, 2023)
Summary
Hearing record Protecting Beneficiaries from the Harm of Improper Payments, before the Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, on October 18, 2023 (Serial No. 118–SS03). Opening statements are listed for Hon. Drew Ferguson, Georgia, Chairman, and Hon. John Larson, Connecticut, Ranking Member. Witnesses were Kilolo Kijakazi, Ph.D., Acting Commissioner, Social Security Administration; Tony Eickman of the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General; and Elizabeth Curda, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Accountability Office. The record also contains member questions for the record with responses from each witness and public submissions.
Summary drafted by a model from the document's text below and checked by script against that text before publication. It is a navigation aid, not a reading of what the document proves. Where AI is used
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“Protecting Beneficiaries from the Harm of Improper Payments — Hearing (October 18, 2023).”
Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/chrg-118hhrg55064-protecting-beneficiaries-from-the-harm-of-improper-p-000f8031d3/
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PROTECTING BENEFICIARIES FROM THE HARM
OF IMPROPER PAYMENTS
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
OCTOBER 18, 2023
Serial No. 118–SS03
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
(
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
55–064 WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
JASON SMITH, Missouri, Chairman
VERN BUCHANAN, Florida RICHARD E. NEAL, Massachusetts
ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania MIKE THOMPSON, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
JODEY ARRINGTON, Texas DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
DREW FERGUSON, Georgia LINDA SÁNCHEZ, California
RON ESTES, Kansas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania TERRI SEWELL, Alabama
KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma SUZAN DELBENE, Washington
CAROL MILLER, West Virginia JUDY CHU, California
GREG MURPHY, North Carolina GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee DAN KILDEE, Michigan
BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania DON BEYER, Virginia
GREG STEUBE, Florida DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota JIMMY PANETTA, California
BLAKE MOORE, Utah
MICHELLE STEEL, California
BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
MIKE CAREY, Ohio
MARK ROMAN, Staff Director
BRANDON CASEY, Minority Chief Counsel
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY
DREW FERGUSON, Georgia, Chairman
MIKE CAREY, Ohio JOHN LARSON, Connecticut
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona BILL PASCRELL, New Jersey
RON ESTES, Kansas LINDA SÁNCHEZ, California
BLAKE MOORE, Utah DAN KILDEE, Michigan
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
GREG STEUBE, Florida
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
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CONTENTS
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Drew Ferguson, Georgia, Chairman ............................................................. 1
Hon. John Larson, Connecticut, Ranking Member ............................................... 13
Advisory of October 18, 2023 announcing the hearing ......................................... V
WITNESSES
Kilolo Kijakazi, Ph.D., Acting Commissioner, Social Security Administration .. 15
Tony Eickman, Program Audit Dvision Director, Social Security Administra-
tion Office of the Inspector General ................................................................... 24
Elizabeth Curda, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S.
Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 34
MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Member Questions for the Record to and Responses from Kilolo Kijakazi,
Ph.D., Acting Commissioner, Social Security Administration .......................... 85
Member Questions for the Record to and Responses from Tony Eickman,
Program Audit Division Director, Social Security Administration Office of
the Inspector General .......................................................................................... 90
Member Questions for the Record to and Responses from Elizabeth Curda,
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security, U.S. Government Ac-
countability ........................................................................................................... 91
PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Public Submissions .................................................................................................. 94
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PROTECTING BENEFICIARIES FROM THE
HARM OF IMPROPER PAYMENTS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2023
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY,
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:12 p.m., in Room
2020, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Drew Ferguson [chair-
man of the subcommittee] presiding.
Chairman FERGUSON. This is a crazy time on Capitol Hill right
now. But wanted to welcome you, thank you for taking time to join
us today.
We have got a lot of work to do on improper payments. That is
what we are here to discuss today. One thing that I would like to
say is one thing that I think that we all agree on, and I want to
go ahead and put this out there right now, is that way too many
Americans now have the burden of having to deal with an overpay-
ment.
And I believe that we come together in a way to make sure that
those people are not caused additional harm or suffering. And we
will get to that conversation, because I know whether you are Re-
publican, whether you are Democrat, no matter what district you
are from, the last thing you want to see are your constituents bur-
dened by mistakes that have been made by the administration.
So we will get to that point. But today it is about making sure
that we focus in on how to stop the improper payments, underpay-
ments or overpayments, improper payments.
And we have a—Social Security is so vitally important to all of
us, and there are about 65 million Americans who rely on the So-
cial Security Administration to provide them with timely and accu-
rate benefits each and every month. To the roughly 180 million tax-
payers who contribute a portion of their paychecks to fund the pro-
gram, it is important to them too. With a program this size, which
pays out more than $1.2 trillion a year, even a small percentage
of errors can have a big impact, and every error can affect a bene-
ficiary’s livelihood.
Let’s all agree—let’s all, again, agree that we shouldn’t be going
after beneficiaries who receive payments improperly. Let’s focus
first on stopping the improper payments. Whether it is—whether
we are talking about an overpayment or whether we are talking
about an underpayment, we have to get this right.
We have major issues, and we have insolvency coming with So-
cial Security in less than 10 years, something that we all—we all
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share a concern about and are committed to finding a pathway for-
ward in a bipartisan way. But we cannot continue to go down the
road of turning a blind eye to inefficiencies and improper payments
in the administration.
So I believe that, as we go forward, we can figure out better proc-
esses. I think that we can figure out more efficient ways of dealing
with this.
Just to give you an example. The old process took way too long,
and now the improved process has a 10-page form that the bene-
ficiary has to navigate. It is still really complicated, and we are
putting a tremendous burden on the beneficiary when, in fact,
there are ways that we can address this, and we can be more
proactive in dealing with the improper payments.
And I understand, and what I would like to do is enter into the
record, without objection, the request waiver for the overpayment
recovery.
This is it. Many of you have seen this. It is not the easiest thing
in the world, particularly if we are talking about someone that may
not have the means and the resources around them to hire profes-
sionals to help them with this.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Even when a beneficiary follows the
rules, the SSA services outages, errors, and processing delays can
result in the need to contact SSA multiple times. Improper pay-
ments, many of which—many of which occur by no fault of those
who have been improperly paid, do, in fact, place a heavy burden
on the recipients. And that is why we have got to do more to help
prevent this before they happen.
And it is no mystery what is causing these improper payments.
As each of today’s witnesses can tell you, a major driver of overpay-
ments is SSA’s continued reliance on manual processes to report
earnings in a timely manner.
This is why Congress gave the Social Security Administration
new authority to enter into information exchanges with payroll
data providers to reduce SSA’s dependence on beneficiaries self-re-
porting their earnings and to prevent improper payments. This was
done 8 years ago, 8 years ago. SSA still has not put this authority
into use, and one of the things that we are going to want to find
out today is why that is.
Earlier this year, I wrote a letter to the SSA, along with the
Ways and Means chairman, Jason Smith, and Work and Welfare
Chairman Darin LaHood, to ask why SSA had taken so long to use
this important tool and to press SSA and to put that production—
to put it into production as soon as possible. And I—again, I intend
to follow up with questions today to that effect.
I also look forward to hearing from the Government Account-
ability Office and the SSA Office Inspector General, both of which
have dedicated significant time to analyzing SSA’s payment accu-
racy and recommending improvements. And, while I understand
that the SSA has made progress on some of them, there is a lot
more that could be done.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. Again, my
apologies for starting this late.
With that, I yield to my good friend and ranking member, Mr.
Larson.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I especially want to thank our witnesses for being here as
well.
Commissioner, I want to thank you especially for visiting our dis-
tricts, et cetera, and the care and concern that I know you have
as leader of this great institution.
Let me say that I share some of the concerns that have been put
forward by the chairman, but I want to put it in perspective.
Let’s start with this year’s budget which is flat funded, and then
add on top of that the proposal by our colleagues to cut that by 30
percent. When there are 10,000 baby boomers a day who become
eligible for Social Security, when there is close to 70 million Ameri-
cans who receive Social Security payments, this is not the time to
be cutting.
The thing that I hear most in my district from individuals when
I call and go home is that they can’t get in touch with a human
being or a voice on the other side that can answer a question for
them. And the reason they can’t is because the agency has been cut
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and understaffed, something that people in Congress seem to be ob-
livious to.
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When we add that to the fact that Congress, whose responsibility
it is to fund Social Security, hasn’t enhanced the program in 52
years—52 years—has anything happened with inflation or in the
economy in 52 years that would require the United States Congress
to actually look at the benefits that people receive and adjust
them? Nobody gets wealthy on Social Security. On average, $18,000
per male, $14,000 per female, and, in the United States of America,
with our vast budget, 5 million of our fellow Americans get below-
poverty-level checks.
Is there any conversation about adjusting them? No. And they
need to be brought up so that they are able to survive and subsist,
because more than 40 percent of all Social Security recipients, the
only thing they have to rely on is Social Security.
Morality demands that this committee and the Congress act es-
pecially in these times, in this time, in the aftermath, and the
aftermath of the epidemic that took over this country, and globally,
people are still recovering from that. And who was hurt by that the
most? People over the age of 65. And, in a time of global inflation,
who is the group that is hit hardest by that? People on fixed in-
come. Those are people on Social Security.
And so here we have our fellow Americans that are in the great-
est need, and Congress, it is great that we are looking, and we
hope to get answers in terms of making Social Security and every
governmental agency more efficient, but we could start by having
them, with the appropriate personnel, to make sure they are an-
swering the questions.
And even more startling and beyond that is we could actually
give our fellow citizens and constituents—I have a card for every-
body on this committee and everybody in Congress that details in
your district how many recipients you have, what they receive, how
much money comes into your district on a monthly basis for Social
Security recipients.
Why Republicans are not embracing a—23 million Americans re-
ceiving a tax cut and raising 5 million people out of poverty and
then that money going right back into their communities that they
represent. If you can point to me any better economic development
plan in the country, I would be glad to take a look at it, but there
isn’t. And this goes to the people that need it the most. And where
do they spend that money? Right back in their community.
And until we address and face up to these glaring inequities, this
may be great conversation, but it is not going to fix what is wrong
with Social Security. What is wrong with Social Security is Con-
gress inaction, not doing anything.
Thirty years ago—excuse me—40 years ago, in 1983, they took
a look at solvency and said, well, you know what we are going do?
We are going to raise the age. What they found out in the process
is that for every year you raise the age, it is a 7 percent cut in ben-
efits. And my friends and colleagues on the other side are pro-
posing raising the age to 70, which would be a 21 percent across-
the-board cut, going along with the inaction by Congress that in
2033 would mean a 20 percent cut. That is a 43 percent cut to peo-
ple on average who are getting $18,000 a year if you are a male,
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$14,000. It is long overdue for Congress to step up and take action.
Sorry I ran over, Mr. Chairman.
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Larson.
Next, I have the pleasure of formally introducing our witnesses,
Dr. Kilolo Kijakazi—I am going to say this wrong—Kija——
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Kijakazi.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you for coming to my district.
You said it then, and I still had trouble getting it out. But, Doctor,
thank you for being here today, and thank you for being the acting
commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Again, I want
to thank you for coming to my district, having a very good con-
versation there and look forward to the discussion today.
Ms. Tonya Eickman, Program Audit Division for the Director of
Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General, wel-
come.
And lastly, Ms. Elizabeth Curda, director of Education, Work-
force, and Income Security of the U.S. Government Accountability
Office.
Thank you all for joining us today.
Again, your written statements will be made part of the record,
and you will each have 5 minutes to deliver your remarks.
Doctor, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF DR. KILOLO KIJAKAZI, PH.D., ACTING
COMMISSIONER, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Thank you for inviting us, SSA, to participate in
this hearing. I am Kilolo Kijakazi, acting commissioner of the So-
cial Security Administration, or SSA.
I have not testified or provided interviews for the media during
my tenure because I have been laser-focused on the work of suc-
cessfully resuming walk-in traffic in our local offices after the pan-
demic. We had lines in less than 5 percent of our 1,230 offices, even
at the peak of demand.
I also focused on the crisis that SSA faced after years of inad-
equate funding that led to the agency’s lowest level of staffing in
25 years, and I focused on conducting a hiring surge with the in-
crease in funds we received in fiscal year 2023. This resulted in the
onboarding of 7,800 new employees for a net gain of 3,200 employ-
ees. And this brought our total number of employees up to nearly
60,000 by the end of the fiscal year 2023.
Both the pandemic and the staffing shortage contributed to the
subject of this hearing: overpayments. Therefore, I wanted to be
here to address this issue.
During the balance of my time, I will address three points. First,
SSA’s employees work assiduously to pay the right person the right
amount at the right time. And, as a result, we have achieved low
overpayment rates. Next, I will walk through the overpayment
process. And lastly, I will discuss SSA’s commitment to continuous
improvement.
SSA pays approximately $1.4 trillion in benefits to more than 71
million people each year. Our overpayment rates are low, about one
half of 1 percent for Social Security and about 8 percent for Supple-
mental Security Income, or SSI.
Overpayments can occur, given the large number of people we
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serve, the frequent changes in their circumstances, and the statu-
tory complexity of the programs. And our staffing shortages abso-
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lutely contribute to overpayments. Last year, we had the lowest
level of staffing in 25 years. At the same time, we had the highest
number of beneficiaries ever.
If we could show the chart on the monitors or here. Yes.
The blue line represents the precipitous decline in staffing over
the last several years. And the red line shows the increase in bene-
ficiaries as baby boomers retire or become disabled.
SSA cannot continue to do more with less. To achieve the high-
quality service that our beneficiaries deserve, we need sufficient,
sustained funding from Congress. We have not had that for the
better part of the last decade.
The current continuing resolution through November 17 returned
us to a full freeze on our hiring and our overtime until we have
our annual fiscal year 2024 funding.
Next, I will discuss the overpayment process. If we determine
that a beneficiary has been paid more than they should have re-
ceived, we are required by law to seek recovery of the overpayment
amounts. First, we issue a notice to the beneficiary to explain that
they were overpaid, the reason for the overpayment, and the
amount. The notice generally requests a full and immediate refund
and describes a proposed rate of benefit withholding. However, the
notice to SSI beneficiaries indicates that they can repay the
amount that they can afford monthly. The notice also explains the
right to request an appeal, a waiver, or a different rate of with-
holding.
I understand that receiving an overpayment notice can be dis-
tressing for beneficiaries. We seek to balance compassion with our
statutory obligation to—and to seek recovery and carefully review
Social Security trust funds.
I am running over. So I am—I will answer questions. But in clos-
ing, I want to share that I have been concerned by the widespread
misunderstanding of the overpayments process and how this mis-
understanding has influenced the public discourse. It is critical
that, in the public’s trust, we be factual when discussing challenges
facing SSA.
I appreciate your support for our agency’s important work, serv-
ing your constituents. And I look forward to answering your ques-
tions.
[The statement of Ms. Kijakazi follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Dr. Kijakazi. Thank you. We
appreciate that.
Ms. Eickman, you are—it is now your time.
STATEMENT OF MS. TONYA EICKMAN, PROGRAM AUDIT DIVI-
SION DIRECTOR, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION OF-
FICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
Ms. EICKMAN. Chairman Ferguson, Ranking Member Larson,
and members of the Subcommittee on Social Security, I commend
you for holding this important hearing today on Social Security Ad-
ministration improper payments.
Improper payments can have a devastating effect on bene-
ficiaries, particularly when the improper payment is the result of
an agency error. Simply put, an overpayment occurs when SSA
states an individual received more Social Security or SSI benefits
than they were supposed to receive.
Many overpayments can accumulate over several years until SSA
realizes payments to the beneficiaries have been inaccurate. In
some instances, individuals are sent bills stating they owe thou-
sands of dollars they cannot afford.
The other side of this improper payments coin can be just as
harmful to beneficiaries. When an agency error results in under-
payments, beneficiaries are not receiving their full monthly bene-
fits, sometimes for months or even years.
Improper payments can occur for many reasons, including when
SSA does not obtain necessary information from beneficiaries or
fails to act on that information once received. Improper payments
also occur when SSA makes mistakes in computing payments due
to the complexity of calculations and reliance on manual processes.
Since fiscal year 2002, SSA’s Office of the Inspector General has
identified improper payments as a major management challenge.
SSA’s OIG is committed to identifying ways for SSA to prevent im-
proper payments to the millions of beneficiaries who rely on the
agency to send them their correct monthly benefit amount.
One of the most common reasons for improper payments is re-
lated to SSA’s reliance on beneficiaries to report any change in cir-
cumstances that may affect their benefits. Wages and income, re-
sources, and living arrangements are a few of the factors that af-
fect OASDI and/or SSI eligibility and payment amounts.
Improper payments also occur when SSA does not act timely
once it receives information from the individual. In one audit, OIG
estimated SSA incorrectly paid over $40 million because it did not
timely process work reviews for beneficiaries who had reported
their earnings.
SSA employees must take manual actions to make calculations
or establish records when systems cannot fully process them. Some
of the calculations that must be completed manually are based on
complex provisions written into Federal statutes. Employees have
tools to assist with the calculations, and there are alerts to prompt
manual actions for some workloads, but OIG audits have found
that controls around these manual processes are not always effec-
tive.
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Once SSA makes overpayments, it must provide due process to
the overpaid individuals. SSA notifies them of information, such as
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25
the amount of the overpayment, how and when the overpayment
occurred, and options to request reconsideration or waiver.
After SSA notifies the overpaid individuals, it has numerous op-
tions for recovering overpayment. The preferred method is to with-
hold benefits if the overpaid individual is receiving a monthly pay-
ment. Otherwise, SSA has other options as discussed in my written
testimony.
SSA OIG’s work demonstrates a commitment to assisting SSA in
addressing its improper payments challenge. In the last 5 years,
the OIG issued 101 reports with 299 recommendations related to
improper payments. These reports identified over $7 billion in
questioned costs. Of these, 76 recommendations aimed at address-
ing $1.8 billion in questioned costs remain unimplemented.
OIG acknowledges SSA has taken some steps to improve preven-
tion, detection, and recovery of overpayments. However, there is
much more SSA can do. Specifically, SSA needs to identify and pre-
vent improper payments through automation and data analytics,
expand efforts to collect data from reliable third-party sources, and
address the root causes of improper payments to prevent their oc-
currence.
Improper payments are a major challenge for SSA. Without bet-
ter access to data, increased automation, systems modernization,
and policy or legislative changes, it will continue to be an issue into
the future.
Thank you for inviting the Office of the Inspector General to dis-
cuss issues concerning improper payments at SSA. I would be
pleased to address any questions.
[The statement of Ms. Eickman follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Ms. Eickman.
Ms. Curda, it is now your time.
STATEMENT OF MS. ELIZABETH CURDA, DIRECTOR, EDU-
CATION, WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY, U.S. GOV-
ERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Ms. CURDA. Chairman Ferguson, Ranking Member Larson, and
members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to be here today to dis-
cuss our work on overpayments in the Disability Insurance pro-
gram.
DI serves as a critical safety net by providing benefits to individ-
uals who can no longer work because of physical or mental impair-
ments. In fiscal year 2022, about 8.95 million DI beneficiaries re-
ceived approximately $146 billion in benefits.
DI overpayments have been a long-standing challenge for SSA.
They can pose a financial hardship for beneficiaries responsible for
repaying the debt. They can also result in the loss of taxpayer dol-
lars either because beneficiaries do not repay their debts or be-
cause they are eligible to have their overpayment debts waived.
In light of these issues, past GAO work has highlighted the im-
portance of preventing, detecting, and recovering overpayments to
DI beneficiaries.
This testimony describes, one, the impact of overpayments on DI
beneficiaries and taxpayers; and SSA’s challenges with preventing,
detecting, and recovering improper payments; and related GAO rec-
ommendations.
GAO in past research have consistently found that the majority
of DI beneficiaries who have earnings above the limit called sub-
stantial gainful activity, or SGA, will receive an overpayment and
that the financial burden of these overpayments can be high.
In 2015, we reported that more than one-half of all DI overpay-
ments were paid to beneficiaries earning above SGA. Further, a
2019 study by Mathematica and SSA estimated that 71 percent of
DI beneficiaries with earnings above SGA received overpayments.
These overpayments lasted about 9 months and accrued about
$9,000.
In our 2021 study of the work incentive program called Ticket to
Work, we estimated that participants were twice as likely to re-
ceive overpayments than beneficiaries who were not participating
in the program. This is because Ticket participants are more likely
to earn above SGA than nonparticipants.
According to experts and SSA officials we interviewed, the fear
of an overpayment is a disincentive to participating in Ticket and
an ongoing issue for participants. We recommended that SSA iden-
tify the root causes of overpayments to Ticket participants and take
appropriate actions to address them.
In response, SSA conducted a study comparing the sources of
overpayments between Ticket participants and nonparticipants.
They found that the root causes of overpayments resulting from
work for Ticket participants were similar to other beneficiaries who
work. They included failure of beneficiaries to report work, failure
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of SSA to take timely actions to process work reports, and the com-
plexity of policies governing work activity and SGA.
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In addition to the burden on beneficiaries, overpayments impose
a toll on taxpayers. According to SSA’s OIG, overpayments attrib-
uted to disabled beneficiaries engaging in SGA have been a leading
cause of improper payments to the DI program, amounting to $755
million in taxpayer funds at risk in 2021.
Further, overpayments cost SSA in administrative expenses to
recover overpayments. And some overpayments are not recovered
at all. In each fiscal year, from 2018 to 2022, SSA collected an av-
erage of 18.5 percent of debts owed to it annually across its pro-
grams.
GAO has made a number of recommendations related to address-
ing overpayments. While SSA has made progress toward imple-
menting several of these recommendations, others remain
unimplemented. Of the 31 open recommendations, five pertain to
overpayments, and two of the five are priority recommendations.
The first has to do with preventing potential overpayments to in-
dividuals receiving concurrent Federal workers’ compensation bene-
fits. SSA and Labor have agreed to share workers’ compensation
data to prevent overpayments, but it is still a work in progress.
The second has to do with shifting from a minimum withholding
amount for repayments from $10 per month to 10 percent of bene-
fits, which could increase the size and speed of recovery. However,
as of February 2023, those plans were put on hold.
In summary, overpayments negatively affect DI beneficiaries and
taxpayers in several ways. Overpayments may place undue hard-
ship on conscientious DI beneficiaries who reported work yet faced
repaying large sums due to SSA delays. They also create a dis-
incentive for beneficiaries to pursue further work, and they place
a burden on taxpayers through overpayments that are waived or
never recover and the cost of recovering the debt.
While SSA has made efforts in recent years to prevent and detect
overpayments resulting from work, more remains to be done.
This concludes my prepared statement, and I would be happy to
answer any questions you may have at this time.
[The statement of Ms. Curda follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Ms. Curda.
So now we will move to the question-and-answer section of this.
And, Commissioner, I would like to first talk about that chart
that you held up. And look, I get it. Most of—we are seeing a
growth in the program. We know we are going to see a growth in
the number of beneficiaries, but one of the things, I don’t think
that chart tells the whole picture of where we are. Okay.
I think—if I could, I think—do you all have the charts available
to put up?
I think it is important to note that the vast majority of the new
beneficiaries are retirees, correct? And the actual number of Social
Security disability claimants and those beneficiaries is going down.
Okay. And so I think—I think that is good. Obviously, we don’t
want our fellow Americans doing that.
But the reason this is important is to talk about how much it
costs to process a retirement claim versus a disability claim. How
much does it cost to process each one of those?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I will have to take that back. I don’t have the
dollar amount to process each one of those.
I would also add that, while disability claims were going down,
particularly during the pandemic, they have begun—the applica-
tions have begun to increase.
Chairman FERGUSON. So, based on our estimates, it costs
about $255 to process a retirement claim, and it costs about $1,600
to process a disability claim. So there is a big difference.
And the—obviously, the work on the retiree benefit side has
great results, but we are seeing—we are still seeing this take too
long on the disability side.
So I think the, you know, the workload, if you, again, look over
at the chart that is up there, you will see that the disability side
of this is going—is—the curve is starting to bend down. Now, you
say it is going to go up, but we are not seeing significant growth
there, right?
I think the other thing that is important to point out is that it
takes—and this is based on you all’s numbers—it takes about $60
per year to—for a retiree benefit. Okay? But for disability, it is
about $271.
So I think our focus right now needs to be on how to eliminate—
really, how do we reduce these improper payments and make this
disability process go more smoothly.
So, without objection, I would like to have these charts entered
into the record.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. But, again, I just—I don’t want to—I
don’t want us to just look at the one chart that you brought, be-
cause I don’t think it tells—I don’t think it tells the entire picture.
I think probably the biggest question that I have is that, you
know, in your written responses back to the questions that we had
earlier, when we talk about implementing the Payroll Information
Exchange, you said it is more reliable and accurate than the cur-
rent manual process, and it will improve payment accuracy and re-
duce reporting burdens.
If there is a better process, then I guess after 8 years, the ques-
tion is: Why have you all not implemented this program? I mean,
this is something that is—you know, even you all—you all acknowl-
edge that this is a better way of doing it. You are the commis-
sioner. You have got a great team around you that cares about
beneficiaries. Why not implement the program? Why not move
away from the manual processes and really engage in the Payroll
Information Exchange program?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Mr. Ferguson, thank you for your question. We
have been working steadily to implement this important initiative.
Several factors require time. We had to obtain a payroll data pro-
vider that had the capacity to conduct the exchange. That took
some time. We had to obtain approval from beneficiaries to have
their earnings reported to SSA by the data provider. We have ob-
tained approval from over 10 million beneficiaries thus far. That
has taken time.
We had to conduct an accuracy test, which recently we were able
to complete, and we found that, as you indicated, successful results.
We published the Federal Register notice in January 2021. We
are finalizing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, and it will have
a timeline for implementation. So we are just about there.
Chairman FERGUSON. What do you think that timeline is? I
mean, it just seems—8 years seems like—on something as impor-
tant as this program, 8 years just seems like it is—something is
broken in the system to get—to go from start to 8 years and we
still don’t have the program.
So how much longer is this going to take?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So we anticipate by the end of the year we
should have the publication of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
And, during my tenure, I asked that we expedite this process for
getting the PIE in place.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay. So, by the end of the year, we will
have the proposal for the rulemaking.
How long do you anticipate the rulemaking process to take?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I will have to take that back, but I think that
we are nearly there.
Chairman FERGUSON. Nearly—and I don’t mean to—I am not
trying to—I am not trying to be—beat you up here, Doctor. But
‘‘nearly there’’ meaning a year? Twelve months?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Finalizing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is
about the last hurdle that we have, and I anticipate that we should
be able to do that by the end of the year.
Chairman FERGUSON. So you think this program could be oper-
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ational by the end of the year, or you just got the rule by the end
of the year.
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Ms. KIJAKAZI. The rule.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. And I can come back to you with more specifics
in terms of the timeline. We can provide you with a written re-
sponse on that.
Chairman FERGUSON. I think that would be helpful.
So I have also got a couple of letters here that I would like to
enter into the record that have your responses to the written ques-
tions that we have done earlier.
So I would like to enter those in as well.
[The information follows:]
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64
Chairman FERGUSON. And, again, I want to encourage you to
get this implemented as quickly as possible. I just think that we
have got too many Americans that this has a potential to burden
either from an overpayment or an underpayment. And getting a
better process in place than this manual system, which also should
reduce the need for personnel potentially, all of those things mat-
ter.
So I am going to encourage you. We can—you know, I don’t think
the answer can always be more money and more people. We have
got to work smarter with, you know, with better resource—with the
resources that we have.
So, with that, at this point I would like to yield to the ranking
member, Mr. Larson, for your questions.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for your line of questioning as well.
Let me say that I share a lot of the concerns that have been
raised by the chairman, especially with regard to an 8-year period
and being able to address these issues in a timely fashion. And,
certainly, everyone in Congress wants to see all of our agencies op-
erate as efficiently as they possibly can.
But my question to you, Dr. Kijakazi, is that if—I appreciate
your agency working to fix this problem. What is the top thing SSA
needs from Congress in order to provide better customer service to
beneficiaries trying to resolve these overpayments?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. We do need sustained, sufficient funding so that
we can hire the number of staff we need to cover all of the work-
loads, including the overpayment workload.
Mr. LARSON. What would that staff load be? And instead, you
are operating at flat-level funding. Is that not correct?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. That is what is in the legislation that addressed
the debt ceiling. It provided for level funding for fiscal year 2024,
which is actually a budget cut for Social Security because we have
fixed costs of about $700 million for fiscal year 2024, because we
have—we face increase—for example, increases in the rent on the
1,230 field offices across the country and the approximately 300
hearings offices. So we would be entering into 2024 with a substan-
tial cut.
We were able—with the increase in fiscal year 2023 funds, we
had the hiring surge. We brought on, I believe, more new hires
than we have ever done in SSA’s history within that limited period
of time, and we are up to about 60,000.
But, given attrition over the course of the year, if we have level
funding, we will have a hiring freeze, which means we cannot re-
place the people who leave. And so we will begin that decline in
our staffing once again and not have sufficient staff to handle the
workloads.
Mr. LARSON. The point of my question is that you don’t have
sufficient staff. And as we look going forward, and as much as we
would all like to see efficiencies out of the program, et cetera, is
there a more efficient program in the United States Government
than Social Security? What is your operating cost? I believe in in-
surance language, and I happen to be from an insurance area of
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the world, but you have like a 99 percent loss ratio.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Right.
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Mr. LARSON. What does that mean, Commissioner?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. It means administrative costs of less than 1 per-
cent.
Mr. LARSON. So, you operate the largest insurance company—
the largest insurance operation in the country for 70 million people
at under 1 percent, and we are cutting you?
Of course, we would all like to see everything be more efficient
and as effective as it can be. But this is something that should be
highlighted. I am surprised that my colleagues on the other side of
the aisle aren’t glorifying the fact that, why, why don’t we look at
all of our agencies and see if they can operate at the same kind
of efficiency that you have?
And, yes, there is always room for improvement. But we are talk-
ing about human beings here, too, that are going to have questions.
And, as the form that the chairman raised earlier points out,
things can get pretty complicated. And so we need the staffing level
and we need the humanization in the process to make sure that
the public is getting these answers.
So, we want to make sure that you have the dollars that are
needed to invest in the personnel who can serve the public and con-
tinue to provide the Nation with the number one anti-poverty pro-
gram for the elderly and the number one economic development
program we have in every one of our districts. And instead, it is
flat funded and cut, and Congress hasn’t increased any benefit in
more than 52 years. How is that responsible?
Chairman FERGUSON. I would like to thank the ranking mem-
ber. But I also would just like to point out that in fiscal year 2023,
the administration’s budget was $14.13 billion. And that was an in-
crease of $785 million over fiscal year 2022. So there has been an
increase in funding.
With that, next I would like to yield to Mr. Estes from Kansas.
Mr. ESTES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.
You know, holding a hearing on Social Security is critical, as this
Federal program impacts all of our districts and constituents so
personally. In Kansas, there is more than 45,000 Social Security re-
cipients. So the discussions we have here today will certainly make
a difference in the lives of many Kansans and Americans.
With such a massive program, it is not hard to imagine that
there would be some small errors and potential mismanagement at
the Social Security Administration. However, the massive number
of improper payments is unacceptable, and it harms the Americans
we represent.
In fiscal year 2021, Social Security Administration made around
$2.5 billion in improper Old-Age and Survivors’ Insurance and Dis-
ability Insurance payments—$2.5 billion that weren’t managed cor-
rectly.
And here is the truth that we all know in the room, on both sides
of the aisle. The Social Security trust fund is already in danger of
insolvency, and overpayments in the amount of $2 billion a year
only threatens that insolvency even more.
Beneficiaries are largely not responsible for the improper pay-
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ments, yet they bear the brunt of their overpayments of which the
fiscal year 2021 number was about $2 billion, caused hardships as
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unknowing beneficiaries are forced to pay back the overpayments,
sometimes decades after the improper payments are made.
And the $518 million in underpayments from fiscal year 2021
prevents beneficiaries like seniors in Wichita or Pratt or Newton in
my district on a fixed income from being able to buy medicine or
put food on their table.
And high prices from Bidenflation are already causing seniors to
stretch their dollars, even after a larger-than-average cost of living
increase in Social Security to try to compensate for that increased
inflation. They shouldn’t be asked to make an even greater sacrifice
due to bureaucratic blunders at SSA.
The solutions to proactively prevent improper payments and
over—over and underpayments, instead of placing the burden on
American taxpayers by making them repay overpayments or wait
on the disbursements of underpayments, the fix should come out of
the Social Security Administration.
And the Administration already has some tools. Even before I
began my service in Congress, the 2015 law authorized entry into
payment information exchanges—Payroll Information Exchanges,
as our chairman mentioned earlier. Even the SSA said this will im-
prove accuracy. Yet 7 years later, as noted, it has not been imple-
mented. Then there are some recommendations from GAO and the
OIG. Again, some of these recommendations have not been imple-
mented.
And the fact of the matter is that Social Security Administration,
like all of our Federal agencies, should be in the business of help-
ing the American people, not looking for ways to make it easier to
do their jobs here in Washington, D.C.
The burden of improper payments should rest on the SSA, even
before such mismanagement can detrimentally impact American
citizens.
Ms. Curda, you mentioned a recommendation from SSA’s use of
computer matching to help reduce overpayments from the current
receipt of Federal workers’ compensation benefits and DI benefits.
Why did the GAO make this recommendation? What is the status
of the recommendation?
Ms. CURDA. Thank you for that question. Yes, back in 2015, we
found that SSA’s internal controls for helping prevent DI overpay-
ments due to the concurrent receipt of those worker compensation
benefits relies on beneficiaries’ self-reporting any of those benefits,
you know, the workers’ compensation benefits.
So what we found was that SSA could do more to leverage exist-
ing data to prevent overpayments to beneficiaries who are concur-
rently receiving those workers’ compensation benefits. So we rec-
ommended SSA strengthen its internal controls, and SSA has
taken steps toward implementing that recommendation. They have
been working with Department of Labor on a plan to establish com-
puter matching to exchange data with the Department of Labor.
However, as of February 2023, the plan is still a work in
progress. And we understand that systems would need to be put in
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place to accomplish the matching, and that has yet to be accom-
plished.
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Mr. ESTES. All right. Well, thank you. I am a big advocate of
let’s do it right the first time, and then we don’t have to go back
and fix those errors.
Acting Commissioner Kijakazi, I know that SSA is making hun-
dreds of millions of dollars in overpayments to some of the DI bene-
ficiaries who are also receiving the Federal workers’ compensation.
Do you have updates on where SSA stands on the data matching
with the Department of Labor to prevent these improper pay-
ments?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. As my co-witness indicated, we are making
progress with DOL on this, and she also indicated that it requires
systems improvements.
Systems improvements require sufficient funding to make those
improvements. So we are working with what we have and making
as much progress as we can.
Mr. ESTES. So, again, following along with her, is it—are you
going to be done by the end of the year? Is it next year?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I will take that back, and we will provide you a
response in writing about the timeline for the completion.
Mr. ESTES. All right. Thank you very much. My time has ex-
pired.
I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Next, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell.
Mr. PASCRELL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, afternoon, what-
ever it is. Been a long day so far.
And we already had a meeting this morning, which was a good
meeting. So we are still working, thanks to the chairman and the
ranking member.
You could almost predict what I am going to say, Mr. Chairman.
But let me have the chance to say it anyway.
Let’s set the record straight. Mr. Chairman, Chairman Ferguson,
who I respect tremendously, this hearing to me is another smoke
screen. It serves as a coverup for an extremist agenda to gut Social
Security. That is how I perceive it, when I look at the numbers,
when I look at all the suggestions.
And don’t forget. We go back a little ways. There is—we were
going to cut Social Security when I got into the Congress in the
late nineties. And the suggestion was from the President at that
time—I won’t mention his name. He is not important here. We are
looking at principle. Let’s increase the age where you are eligible.
Chairman FERGUSON. Was his name Eisenhower? Is that
about the time you got here, my dear friend?
Mr. PASCRELL. I will make believe I didn’t hear that.
Chairman FERGUSON. I am just teasing.
Mr. PASCRELL. The second way was to privatize Social Secu-
rity.
Now, when I was running for office in 1996 against an incum-
bent, when I was running, I went to my first campaign stop of sen-
ior citizens. And I thought they were going to ask me about all
things other than Social Security. Really. I didn’t really think it
was an issue at that time until I got to the Congress. I was fortu-
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nate enough to be elected. And then I saw the raising of age of eli-
gibility.
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And when you looked at the number, Madam Director, I mean,
you were blown away by what it did to Social Security in terms of
its bottom line, because that is what we are really talking about
here.
And so, cutting Social Security has a history. How you do it has
a history. How you camouflage it has a history. We thought in cut-
ting—in adding the age limit, going up to 97—or 67—you are lis-
tening—going up to 67, you know, wasn’t really supposed to affect
the bottom line of Social Security. It did. It did.
And isn’t it true, Madam Director, isn’t it true, correct me if I
am wrong, that every year we raise the retirement age, it is a 7
percent cut in the benefits of Social Security? Is that true or false?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. True. Our actuary, our chief actuary at the So-
cial Security Administration has reviewed the effects of raising the
retirement age. And, yes, it is about 7 percent a year.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you.
So I don’t question that we should be looking at it to see if oper-
ations cost more than they should. In fact, that is what we were
talking about this morning. See, it just happened we were talking
about the same thing on the same day.
It is one of our Nation’s greatest success stories. You have heard
the chairman. You have said it yourself. You have said it, Ranking
Member.
It has lifted more Americans out of poverty than any other Fed-
eral program. In fact, I believe that if we were to get the principles
that we—how Social Security was laid out, we wouldn’t have as
many problems in Federal programs as we do right now.
So, there is 90 years here. After 90 years, Social Security still
stands as a monument to decency, dignity, and hardworking Amer-
icans. We are proud of this program. Republicans are proud. Demo-
crats are proud.
Yet through that storied history, Social Security has been under
attack. We always want to make it cheaper, if possible. How you
do that, no one has really figured out, except that we have put in
these alternatives and it doesn’t work.
Chairman FERGUSON. Will my dear friend——
Mr. PASCRELL. Yes, sir.
Chairman FERGUSON [continuing]. Acknowledge that he is 29
seconds over his time?
Mr. PASCRELL. Well, I know that you would give me a little bit
more time——
Chairman FERGUSON. I will give you——
Mr. PASCRELL [continuing]. If I asked.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay. You didn’t even have to ask, and
I gave it to you.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you.
Chairman FERGUSON. So——
Mr. PASCRELL. I am almost done.
Chairman FERGUSON. Well, I believe—because we got a lot to
do today and I know your passion for this, Billy, I really do. And
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we do share the same—the same view that cutting benefits is not—
is not the right path. So we share that.
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Mr. PASCRELL. Well, don’t—don’t say that, Mr. Chairman, be-
cause your own study committee came up with a report that does
exactly that now.
Chairman FERGUSON. Well——
Mr. PASCRELL. I am trying to be kind and charitable here
today.
Chairman FERGUSON. And—but this committee has not, and
nothing will go through this committee that does. So with that——
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you. I am glad to hear that.
Chairman FERGUSON. So with that, I will yield now to the gen-
tleman from Utah, Mr. Moore.
Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Chairman.
And I echo my colleague from New Jersey appreciation for keep-
ing us working. So thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
So what have we established? I have heard that you all have a
big job to do. And I appreciate you, and I thank you for the work
that you do to implement the largest budget item that we have. It
is a huge responsibility, and you do a lot of good.
And so I wanted to highlight something that I have started with
in a bipartisan fashion. It is called the What Works Caucus. This
group is on the—it is in its infancy, but it kind of—going in from
my previous experience in management consulting, coming to Con-
gress, two vastly different experiences, I will say, as far as produc-
tivity goes, I actually still want to bring some of that to here.
And I think there is a real desire for members on both sides of
the aisle to identify what programs work well, what—what best
practices do we have. And I would offer that the Social Security
Administration has experienced a long history of doing a very im-
portant job. And with that, there, you know, totaling upwards to
$16 billion in the last 4 or 5 years, that is still a big number as
well.
So I can recognize when things are good. I can recognize when
we have got areas to improve, and that is what I want to focus my
questions on.
So this caucus, it is a sincere group of individuals that want to
use data to find ways to improve some of the things that we have
implemented. We cannot be a body that implements something and
then just lets it exist for too long, and we have got to be able to
introspectively look and take a look. So I welcome you and your
thoughts and identify that our office is open to finding ways to do
this.
The question I want to at least highlight—and I would love to
hear some perspective, first, from Ms. Eickman and then Dr.
Kijakazi—automation, right? I know that it is not the—you can’t
automate everything, and I know that workforce requires—work-
force is important. But there—you know, as the demand is—is put
on you for the job to do, for the next 20, 30 years, what areas can
we—can we embrace automation?
Robotics was mentioned in your testimony actually. SSA began
using robotic process automation, which involves the use of soft-
ware to automate high-volume, labor-intensive, or repeatable tasks.
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This allows employees to focus their efforts on more complex ac-
tions.
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I love that. That is a great—that is a great initiative, and I
would just love to give you a moment to sort of give us your per-
spective on how is it going, what areas need to work on that.
And then, Dr. Kijakazi, if you could add your perspective to that
when she finishes, please.
Ms. EICKMAN. Thank you for the question. Yes, the audit
looked at a few areas where the agency is using those robotics proc-
ess automation and has found time savings in using those tools.
And so, as part of our audit, we recommended that SSA further
investigate the use of those tools, the cost effectiveness, and wheth-
er they can be used for additional workloads.
With the tools that are in use, however, we found that it is a
very—only about half of the licensed users are actually using the
tools. And so we also recommended that the agency require its em-
ployees to use those tools whenever possible.
Mr. MOORE. Excellent.
Ma’am, anything to add about your—any recommendations, find-
ing either greater efficiencies and accuracy to reduce improper pay-
ments particularly but in general?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Yes. So in my site visits across the country, we
have learned about the robotics and the effectiveness of them, and
we are encouraging them to continue with the innovation of this
and implementation to the extent that we can within our budget.
In addition, I would like to add—didn’t have time to cover this
in my testimony—that we have worked steadily to reduce overpay-
ments. And we—as a result, we have the low overpayment rate of
one half of 1 percent for Social Security and 8 percent for SSI. And
the way that we have been able to do this is by doing just as you
said, using data to make improvements.
We have our annual payment accuracy reviews to identify over-
payments and the reasons for them. And then the results of these
reviews are used by our improper payment board to conduct root
cause analysis and to identify policies and processes that need im-
provement.
Over the last year, we have taken additional steps. We simplified
the waiver request form that was referred to earlier. And we—as
I indicated before, I asked our staff to expedite the Payroll Infor-
mation Exchange, and we are nearing the end of that and doing
the implementation.
And I recently established a comprehensive review of overpay-
ments. It will be led by an experienced SSA executive and will
cover everything from factors contributing to overpayments, to the
notices that we send to beneficiaries and how those can be made
clear, and the policies and procedures and the systems that can
make this a more efficient process.
Mr. MOORE. Is this group part of the Improper Payments Pre-
vention Team? Is that a different group that you have—that you
have implemented or working with?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So the team that I just mentioned is a newly es-
tablished team, just got underway last week.
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Mr. MOORE. Will that move away from IPPT or will they be
working in conjunction?
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Ms. KIJAKAZI. The team that I put in place is taking a com-
prehensive look. So they will look at IPPT, as well as other work
that is being done. So it is a top-to-bottom comprehensive review.
Mr. MOORE. Thank you.
I yield back. Appreciate it.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Next, the gentlelady from California, Ms. Sánchez.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member
Larson.
I think everybody up here can agree that overpayments that we
are discussing today can be confusing and sometimes even dev-
astating for American seniors and people with severe disabilities
who rely on those benefits to survive and can be shocked that they
have been receiving overpayments.
Just a few weeks ago, I had a constituent reach out to my office
about that very issue. Her son had been receiving these overpay-
ments. And it was quite distressing to them to realize that, you
know, they were essentially on the hook for the overpayments that
he had been receiving.
But it doesn’t escape my notice that years of underfunding has
severely eroded the Social Security Administration’s customer serv-
ice. And you guys have a big job to do. And I think, given the vol-
ume of work that you have to do and the fact that you use 1 per-
cent of revenue to service millions of people effectively, is not lost
on me. That is a very efficiently run organization, and I would
struggle to think of any, you know, Fortune 500 company who has
as good a track record in terms of what they are given to work with
and what they are able to accomplish with what they are given.
Just last year, SSA testified in front of this very subcommittee
that the agency staffing had reached a 25-year low. That means
fewer staff to assist beneficiaries like my constituent’s son who had
been receiving, again, those overpayments beyond the allocated
amount that he was supposed to receive.
Now, we often hear from my colleagues on the other side of the
aisle demanding that Social Security cuts, you know, be made.
And, in my opinion, that would just further undermine the eco-
nomic security of, oh, 66 million Americans who rely, many of
them, solely on those benefits for their retirement.
And, in addition, those, you know, budget cuts would slash fund-
ing for an agency that is clearly already underfunded, creating,
again, a bigger stress in their ability to provide the kind of cus-
tomer service that all of our constituents need and deserve.
Because SSA is understaffed and under resourced, it makes it
more difficult to correct issues like overpayments when they actu-
ally occur. So, it is pretty clear to me that, you know, slashing
funding isn’t the—you know, isn’t the solution to the problem that
we are seeing here.
It is clear that perhaps more resources need to be focused on
those, you know, error points in order to try to have the staff and
have the resources necessary to correct those problems or prevent
those problems from happening in the first place. But, you know,
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this demand, this continual demand to cut, cut, deep cuts, deep
cuts to our budget, you know, isn’t going to help anything.
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House Republicans have proposed to slash funding for Social Se-
curity by 30 percent. And just 3 weeks ago, as a matter of fact,
every Republican member on the Committee on Ways and Means
voted for that 30 percent cut to Social Security.
Commissioner Kijakazi—and I hope I pronounce that correctly—
what would happen to SSA’s customer service if the agency’s budg-
et was slashed by 30 percent? Specifically, how would that affect
SSA’s ability to improve customer service for seniors and people
with disabilities who might be trying to resolve an issue of overpay-
ment?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. It would be more of a crisis than what we are
experiencing now.
This gap between staffing and increased beneficiaries, that is a
crisis that we have been working through. And, this year—yes, Mr.
Ferguson—with the increase in funds that we received for fiscal
year 2023, we pushed that money into hiring, and we brought on
7,800 new hires to get us back up to about 60,000.
But, if we receive a cut of that magnitude, 30,000, what would
happen is that many of the offices in your districts would have to
close. We would not have the staff to be able to operate those of-
fices or the funds available to pay for the rent for those offices.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Do you control the rent that you pay in those
field offices?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. We work with—so the field offices, some we work
with GSA on; others we are working with the private sector. But
there are increases in rent that we have to cover for those field of-
fices.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. I imagine that rent is probably not the only
thing that you have seen increase in cost over time that your agen-
cy has to deal with.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. No.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Could you maybe elaborate on some of the other
costs that have gone up?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. The increases in salaries for our employees and
the increases in benefits that we provide for them so that they will
be economically secure when they retire.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. I appreciate your testimony today.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
I would like to enter into the record now a letter that I wrote
to the GAO Office of Inspector General looking at the IT budget
and how you all implement it, who is responsible for it.
You have got about a $2-billion-a-year IT budget. And, you know,
we have spent roughly $18 billion over the last 10 years. So that
is a lot of money, and, you know, we, quite candidly, just want to
see the accountability for that so we can understand, when you say
that you need additional funding, you know, that you can’t—you
know, quite candidly, I mean, that is a lot of money coming in just
on the IT side every year.
So I would like to enter that letter in, without objection.
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Chairman FERGUSON. And, as we go through this, again, there
is going to be a lot of debate, you know, on the importance of this
program, but, again, today, our focus is on how do we prevent im-
proper payments.
Because I think what is getting lost in it—and, again, we all ap-
plaud the good work that so many do in the agency, in the adminis-
tration. But we are talking about $2.5 billion a year in improper
payments on Social Security and about $7.5 billion, you know, if
you add in disability. So it is still a massive amount of money. And
we have to get that piece right. And we have to cut that—we have
to cut down on that.
So, with that, I will now yield to the gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
Feenstra.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Thank you so much, Chairman Ferguson and
Ranking Member Larson.
And I think Chairman Ferguson nailed it on the head, is that,
you know, the bottom line is, we have to find solutions to improper
payments. And this could be overpayment and it could be under-
payment; it can be both.
And I don’t think it helps anybody in this room when we politi-
cize this. It just seems like I hear that in several discussions that
have been created in here. It is like, let’s get to solutions.
So that is what I want to talk about.
Ms. Curda, I am thinking about my district, and I am thinking
about my constituents and the calls that I get, right? So I am a
frontline person. The constituent innocently says, hey, I got this
letter, blah, blah, blah, I need help.
So our next step is calling the administration. And I am just try-
ing to figure out what solutions can we have. You know, there are
extra steps. My district handles these casework loads, and it seems
like we have extra delays based on these mix-ups, correct?
Can you explain what processes should be improved that would
improve rectifying improper payment errors in a timely fashion
after they have been found?
And this can be the error on the person too. I mean, it goes both
ways.
But do you have any solutions to trying to create a shorter time-
frame when these things happen?
Ms. CURDA. Our work has focused on things like prevention and
recovery and so forth. We haven’t looked at the timeliness, that
piece of it, the timeliness of getting that resolved. And it might be
better directed at the OIG or SSA, that question.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Okay.
Would you have any—can you answer that question?
Ms. EICKMAN. Could you rephrase the question, please?
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yeah. So my question is, what solutions do we
have?
So we have a massive time delay. When a constituent often gets
a letter and says I have overpaid, underpaid, whatever it might be,
and we try to do our constituent work, and it takes months to try
to rectify that problem, there has to be a solution here.
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I mean, what can we do to, you know—total quality management
here—to shorten that timeframe?
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Ms. EICKMAN. The OIG hasn’t done any audit work to look at
the timeframe from when a beneficiary is notified of the overpay-
ment to when any further action has been taken. That is something
that we can consider for future audit work.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yeah.
Could I talk to Acting Administrator Kijakazi?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. ‘‘Kijakazi.’’
Mr. FEENSTRA. There you go.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. You got it.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes. What are your thoughts on that?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So the intent of the Payroll Information Ex-
change is just that, to have the earnings of beneficiaries reported
automatically, and so then the adjustment to benefits can be made
timely, automatically.
So that is what we are trying to put in place. And, yes, it has
taken time, but it is important that it is done right so that we are
not creating additional errors. And so we have taken the steps to
do this right, and we have expedited it.
But this is one way to reduce that timeline between when a
change occurs and when an adjustment is made.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yeah. I would urge you, if possible, to audit and
try to figure out how you can narrow that timeframe. Because on
the other end is somebody that is worried about that over- or un-
derpayment, whatever they are owed or not owed. And as me,
being on the front lines with that constituent, you know, there is
a lot of uncertainty and angst, and we are trying to resolve that
if possible.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I understand.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yep.
And, then, if I could ask: On the Ticket to Work program, sort
of the same situation.
So, on the Ticket to Work program, Administrator, why is the
SSA limiting the Employment Network’s, the EN’s, role in assist-
ing ticket-holders in reporting wages? Is this an official policy of
the SSA and included in the Program Operations Manual System?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So I would like to take that question back. We
have a component that works specifically on Ticket to Work and
does research on that. So I would like to be able to provide you
with a specific response to your question, so I will take that back.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yeah, I would like that. I just think that there
is so much on that employee network, what can be done. I think
there are efficiencies that can be made there also, but we have to
allow that to play out.
So, with that, thank you for being here.
And I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Next, we will go to the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube.
Mr. STEUBE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are here today because of the failure of the Social Security
Administration to administer payments to beneficiaries. Over the
last 5 years, the Social Security Administration made roughly
$13.9 billion in overpayments and $2.5 billion in underpayments.
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According to an investigation by KFF Health News and Cox
Media Group that was published last month, lower-income Ameri-
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cans across the country, including individuals receiving disability
benefits, are being called on to repay the government in amounts
that are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
In a disclosure covering some of the programs involved—Old-Age,
Survivors, and Disability Insurance, what we refer to as Social Se-
curity and Disability Insurance—the agency reported issuing about
$2 billion of overpayments in the 2022 fiscal year, of which about
$1.5 billion was, and I quote, ‘‘within agency control.’’
The process to resolve these issues is difficult and time-demand-
ing. And the victims of this failure from the government are vir-
tually all senior citizens or individuals with significant disabilities.
Ordinary citizens are being punished for government failure and
distracting them from living their basic life, which for many is
overcoming and battling the disabilities that cause them to need
assistance in the first place.
Imagine living paycheck to paycheck with no savings as a result
of an injury preventing you from working again and receiving a
message from the Federal Government saying you owe them tens
of thousands of dollars because of the government’s mistake, not
your mistake.
The Biden administration’s Social Security Administration has
failed the American people, and the result of their failure is to de-
mand the American people pay for the mistakes of the Biden ad-
ministration.
I am still waiting for the day when someone in the administra-
tion will be held accountable. No one in the Department of Defense
has been held accountable for our Afghan withdrawal. No one at
Department of Homeland Security has been held responsible for
our immigration crisis. No one at Department of Justice has been
held responsible for weaponizing law enforcement against political
opponents. No one at the Department of Energy has been held re-
sponsible for crippling our domestic energy. And it is my guess,
based on seeing a thing or two in the Biden administration, that
no one in the Social Security Administration will be held respon-
sible for these over- and underpayments.
The Social Security Administration affects almost 67 million
Americans that receive benefits each year. Improper payments
made by the SSA have affected millions of Americans, according to
the Urban Institute, where the Commissioner was previously a fel-
low.
Again, we are talking about senior citizens and Americans with
significant disabilities, and we have an administration that is pun-
ishing them for their mistakes.
Commissioner, referring to the $2 billion in overpayments in
2022, of which 75 percent of that was, quote, ‘‘within the agency’s
control,’’ the Social Security Administration said, and I quote, ‘‘The
beneficiary or third party provided the information we requested,
but we failed to use the data or information to validate accuracy
prior to making a payment.’’
So I ask, who in the Social Security Administration is failing the
American people?
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Ms. KIJAKAZI. I disagree with your assumption that someone in
the Social Security Administration is failing the American people.
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Mr. STEUBE. So who made those mistakes, then? Because there
is $2 billion in overpayment in 2022 that was not the fault of the
taxpayer, correct? It was not the fault of the taxpayer in the over-
payment, correct?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I will take a look at the numbers that you are
providing——
Mr. STEUBE. Well, that is the whole purpose of this hearing, is
the overpayments.
So the overpayments for my—what is being reported that I just
cited from your own agency is not due to the fault of the taxpayer.
Is that correct?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. There are overpayments that are not due to the
fault of the taxpayer.
Mr. STEUBE. Okay. So those that are not due to the fault of the
taxpayer, regardless of what the number is—we are talking billions
of dollars—who within the administration is being held accountable
for the mistakes that the Social Security Administration is mak-
ing?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. We are holding ourselves accountable by——
Mr. STEUBE. How are you doing that?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. By assiduously working to reduce the overpay-
ments through the steps that I just told you about, which I will re-
iterate and start out first with: Our overpayment rates are low, at
one-half of 1 percent for Social Security and 8 percent for SSA. And
we were able to reduce them to that amount by taking steps such
as annual payment accuracy reviews to identify overpayments and
the reason for them. And then the results of these reviews are used
by our improper payment boards to conduct root-cause analysis and
to identify policies and process enhancements.
And, over the past year, as I indicated, we have simplified the
waiver request form——
Mr. STEUBE. All right. Well, I have only got 30 seconds left, so
I don’t mean to interrupt you, but my time is limited.
So I want to go to page 5 of your testimony. And you state, and
I quote, ‘‘Our goal is to ensure that overpayment recovery does not
unduly burden those in underserved, vulnerable, or marginalized
communities.’’
Are you referring to minority communities in that statement?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. We are referring to very low-income communities
as well as communities of color or who are facing other barriers.
Mr. STEUBE. So are you going to be treating someone of a dif-
ferent race differently based on the law just because they are in a
marginalized or a racial different community?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. What we do is work with whoever has an over-
payment who is going to have difficulty repaying that. And that is
not based on race or gender or anything else that you just indi-
cated. That’s——
Mr. STEUBE. Well, I am using your words, not mine. You said
‘‘underserved, vulnerable, or marginalized communities.’’ I am try-
ing to understand what that is.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. And I am clarifying——
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Mr. STEUBE. The role of the Social Security Administration is
to administer payments to beneficiaries fairly. And that statement
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79
of yours is inconsistent with that mission. We should be treating
all Americans the same.
I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Next, my friend from Michigan, Mr. Kildee, you are recognized.
Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks for holding
this very important hearing.
I do agree with some of the comments made by my colleagues,
particularly those concerned about the Social Security Administra-
tion not having adequate resources in order to prevent all sorts of
problems, including overpayments. Because, at the end of the day,
no senior struggling to make ends meet should be pushed further
into poverty because of any mistake in overpayment or anything
else.
And just following up on my colleague who just finished, Con-
gress has some responsibility, if we really want to take this to who
is responsible, if Congress continues to fail to provide the Social Se-
curity Administration the resources it needs to address the whole
range of problems that you are charged with.
It is an easy thing to do, to sit up on this dais and blame the
people who are being under-resourced to do a job that is difficult
for them to do because Congress isn’t doing its job.
So, I am not asking you to comment on that. I just would like
to make that a part of the record.
But I would like to take this opportunity to just address an unre-
lated issue, and it is the impact of the declining value of Supple-
mental Security Income personal needs allowances.
This is an issue that has come to my attention over the years,
but, most recently, an older gentleman in my district, who is se-
verely disabled, lives in a nursing home—he has for about 6 years
now, and he relies on the personal needs allowance, PNA, for the
basics—a new pair of socks when the old ones wear out, toiletries
that he doesn’t get from the nursing home, something as simple as
a birthday card for his grandchildren. It has gotten harder for him
to do those very simple things because of the lack of support
through the personal needs allowance.
And this is not just a problem in my district. We have it all
across the country in every one of the States and districts rep-
resented on this dais. Over 100,000 people in this country rely on
those payments.
When we last updated PNAs, we set a floor at $30 a month for
an individual, but without any mechanism to accommodate the ris-
ing cost of basic goods and services, like we do with the Social Se-
curity Supplemental Security Income payments themselves. Unlike
that, the value of PNAs has, in real dollars, dropped.
That means that the most vulnerable seniors with severe disabil-
ities living out their later days in a nursing home find it harder
and harder to take care of themselves. And that is just unaccept-
able. It is something we need to address.
And I wonder if you know—and if not, I can maybe offer a
thought on—how long it has been since we increased that number
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for the PNAs for people who rely on those.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. 1987.
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Mr. KILDEE. 1987. So, when you think about the value of $30
in 1987 and what it can purchase today, it is a pretty big dif-
ference. Thirty dollars is worth about $12 in today’s terms. That is
a 60-percent loss of value.
And so, from my perspective, I just wonder if you could com-
ment—because I am sure you hear of more of these cases than we
do—what impact that has on the lives of people who are just trying
to make ends meet.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Well, it certainly makes their lives much more
difficult, at a time when, as you said, they are very elderly and
they are in nursing homes or what have you. It is already kind of
a tough situation, and to not have sufficient PNA just makes it
harder.
Mr. KILDEE. So, if we were to make the decision as a Congress
that we are going to apply the same principle to personal needs al-
lowance that we do to other aspects of this benefit, something as
simple as a cost-of-living allowance based on the index that is ap-
plied to Social Security Supplemental Security Income payments
themselves, would that make sense to you?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So I am not able to provide an opinion about a
policy. But what SSA does do is to provide technical assistance,
and also our Office of the Chief Actuary will cost out the impact
of it.
Mr. KILDEE. Well, I appreciate that, and I hope we can work
together on that.
And I know this is—I hope—a concern that is shared across the
dais and across the aisle here. I am sure that it must be. And per-
haps we can work together to make sure we address this really im-
portant question.
Thank you all very much. Thank you all for your testimony and
for the work that you do every single day.
I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. I thank the gentleman.
Now, the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Kustoff, you are now
recognized.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the ranking member.
And thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.
Acting Commissioner Kijakazi, if I could, if I could ask you about
notification, because I think you talked about this in your testi-
mony. And if I could just ask you broadly, when you have deter-
mined, when your agency has determined, the administration has
determined that a recipient has been overpaid, how do you proce-
durally notify them?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Thank you for your question.
We issue a written notice to the beneficiary, which is mailed out
to them. And we explain that they were overpaid, the reason for
the overpayment, and the amount of the overpayment.
And, generally, the notice requests a full and immediate refund
and describes a proposed rate of benefit withholding. However, the
notice to SSI beneficiaries indicates that they can repay the
amount that they can afford monthly.
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The notice also explains the right to request an appeal, a waiver,
or a different rate of withholding.
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Mr. KUSTOFF. So, if I could—and the way we all get informa-
tion and consume information and receive notices has changed.
And I realize the Social Security Administration may be different.
But are there more efficient ways to notify a recipient that he or
she has been overpaid rather than in the mail?
And I guess the focus of my question is, mail is slow. This is not
your responsibility, but it is not as dependable as it once was. And
fewer and fewer people use the mail.
So is there a more efficient way and maybe, frankly, a way that
is more cost-efficient to the Social Security Administration rather
than using mail?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. This is one of the areas that the review that we
just put in place is going to look at. So what is the most efficient
way to go about this? Are we doing this in the most efficient way,
with respect to our notices? And what are the procedures that we
may want to change? What are the policies we may want to
change? What are the systems improvements that we might want
to make that would be better than what we are doing now?
Mr. KUSTOFF. All right.
So, process-wise, again, you mail a letter. And how long do you
give the recipient to respond in some form or fashion?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Sixty days from the date on the letter.
Mr. KUSTOFF. And, if he or she does not respond in 60 days,
then what?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Then we proceed with making the reductions in
benefits.
If we hear from them, then we can work with them. If they want
to request a waiver, there is not a time limit on when they can re-
quest a waiver. They can do that.
Mr. KUSTOFF. All right.
So the statistics that I have show that the recovery rate for fiscal
year 2022 was about 21 percent. Do you know how that recovery
rate compares to pre-pandemic?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. I do not have that information now, but I can
take that back and provide you with that.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Okay. I guess my point is, when I see 21 percent,
if that is the actual number, that is not very impressive. And,
again, I don’t know, pre-pandemic, if the success rate was higher
or lower.
So I guess my question is and if you could respond at some point
after the hearing number one, is that statistic for 2022, is that cor-
rect? And if it is or if it is not, how does that compare to the years
prior to the pandemic?
And maybe, third, since my time is running short, based on the
resources that you have now, how do we improve that rate?
Mr. KUSTOFF. And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back
the remainder of my time. Thank you.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Now, the gentleman from Ohio, my dear friend Mr. Carey, is rec-
ognized.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to applaud
you and the ranking member for having this hearing.
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You know, one of the things we do as Members of Congress is,
we have our district offices. And many of the times, that is where
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we get the calls that come in. I represent an area of central Ohio,
but I also have the Miami Valley, which goes out towards Dayton,
Ohio. And in one of our weekly meetings, all of a sudden, we start-
ed seeing a number of calls coming in from constituents that were
concerned that they were getting these letters from Social Security
saying that they had been overpaid.
Now, these are people that, you know, they were living by the
rules, they thought they were doing everything fine, and all of a
sudden they get a letter that says they have this overpayment.
And, you know, you can understand how concerning that would be.
So I know we have talked a lot about the numbers and the dol-
lars with the overpayments. I think one of the things that I was
asked by our local media, and I think it is something that we really
need to get to the bottom of, is about—we really just haven’t dis-
cussed how many people have been impacted.
Do we have a number of how many people have been impacted
by these overpayments?
Dr. Kijakazi.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. We do. And I am—I looked at that before I came.
I am sorry, I am not thinking of the number right now, but I can
provide that.
Mr. CAREY. Yeah.
And I guess as a followup on that, I mean, if we don’t know how
many people have received it, how many people are receiving over-
payment notices in a year? Maybe just in a given—do you have any
idea?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. So, for the number of beneficiaries experiencing
an overpayment each year, for fiscal year 2022, 1,028,389; for fiscal
year 2023, 986,912.
Mr. CAREY. So wait a minute. So——
Ms. KIJAKAZI. This is under Social Security.
Mr. CAREY. So 912——
Ms. KIJAKAZI. 986,912.
Mr. CAREY [continuing]. Individuals were getting these letters
in the mail——
Ms. KIJAKAZI. Yes.
Mr. Carey [continuing]. Saying that there was an overpayment
and that they needed to contact you guys and set up a payment
plan.
Ms. KIJAKAZI. That is right.
Mr. CAREY. Seems like an awful lot. You can imagine that is—
you know, when you have all the districts across the country, that
is why we are getting inundated with these calls. And that is why
I want to applaud my colleagues for having this hearing to kind of
understand what we can do better on that.
Along that line, Ms. Eickman, when a beneficiary has this over-
payment, many of them know to call their congressional offices, all
right, but a lot of them don’t. And, you know, we have staff case-
workers that work very well with the constituents, and we work
through the process.
But does SSI apply its waiver policies consistently across the
country, or is it different with the different offices?
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Ms. EICKMAN. We have conducted an audit where we did find
inconsistencies among offices. So we looked at waiver rates among
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field offices, and we found groups of field offices that had very high
waiver rates and other field offices that had very low waiver rates.
Mr. CAREY. Dr. Kijakazi, when you said that the—if—because
I know how often I check my mail, right? I would probably get a
big packet like this.
But, once somebody gets that letter and it is over the 60 days—
maybe they didn’t see it, and 60 days elapses. They get their check.
All of a sudden, the money has been taken out. Now, once they re-
alize, they go through our office, they call you guys directly—which,
I understand the staffing issues, but the 1–800 numbers are very
long. Sometimes they ring busy. Sometimes there is a 36-minute
wait.
But—so they make this call to you guys, and they say, ‘‘Listen,
I can’t afford more than $5, but a lot more was taken out from the
check before.’’ Can they get that reimbursed?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. They can ask to appeal the decision, and they
can ask to not have anything taken out until a decision is made
about the appeal.
And we can work with them on—if they don’t want to appeal, we
can work with them on what is affordable in terms of what is being
taken out for SSI.
Mr. CAREY. Real quick, Dr. Kijakazi. One more time, because I
would like everybody to hear this one more time. How many people
were affected in fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023?
Ms. KIJAKAZI. For Social Security, fiscal year 2022, 1,028,389
people; for fiscal year 2023, 986,912 people.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you.
I thank the witnesses.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
I would now like to thank our witnesses for appearing today. We
appreciate your expert testimony but also the work that you do.
Please know that, you know, this is an important issue to this sub-
committee and to the entire committee. And we appreciate your
diligence on this and your willingness to be here to answer ques-
tions and provide additional answers down the road.
With that, I would like to advise members—please be advised
that members have 2 weeks to submit written questions to be an-
swered later in writing.
Those questions and your answers will be made part of the for-
mal hearing record.
Chairman FERGUSON. And, with that, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:42 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
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PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
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