House hearing (118th Congress), SOCIAL SECURITY'S UNIQUE ROLE IN COMBATING SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER-RELATED IDENTITY FRAUD (PDF)
Summary
The printed record of a May 24, 2023 hearing of the Subcommittee on Social Security of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Serial No. 118–SS02, on the Social Security Administration's role in combatting identity fraud. Opening statements come from Chairman Drew Ferguson of Georgia and Ranking Member John Larson of Connecticut. Witnesses are Sean Brune, Deputy Commissioner for Systems and Chief Information Officer of the Social Security Administration; Katie Wechsler of the Consumer First Coalition; Margaret Hayward, a private citizen; Robert Roach of the Alliance for Retired Americans; and Jeffrey Brown of the SSA Office of the Inspector General. Member post-hearing questions follow.
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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HEARING ON THE SOCIAL SECURITY
ADMINISTRATION’S ROLE IN
COMBATTING IDENTITY FRAUD
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
MAY 24, 2023
Serial No. 118–SS02
Printed for the use of the Committee on Ways and Means
(
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54–359 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 BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa DAN KILDEE, Michigan
GREG STEUBE, Florida
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
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C O N T E N T S
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Hon. Drew Ferguson, Georgia, Chairman ............................................................. 1
Hon. John Larson, Connecticut, Ranking Member ............................................... 2
Advisory of May 24, 2023 announcing the hearing .............................................. V
WITNESSES
Sean Brune, Deputy Commissioner for Systems and Chief Information Offi-
cer, Social Security Administration .................................................................... 4
Katie Wechsler, Co-Executive Director, Consumer First Coalition ..................... 13
Margaret Hayward, Private citizen and mother of three ..................................... 26
Robert Roach, President, Alliance for Retired Americans .................................... 33
Jeffrey Brown, Deputy Assistant Inspector General, Office of Audits, Office
of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration ................................ 43
MEMBER QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
Member Questions for the Record to and Responses from Sean Brune, Deputy
Commissioner for Systems and Chief Information Officer, Social Security
Administration ..................................................................................................... 80
PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Public Submissions .................................................................................................. 92
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SOCIAL SECURITY’S UNIQUE ROLE IN
COMBATING SOCIAL SECURITY
NUMBER-RELATED IDENTITY FRAUD
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2023
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY,
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:01 p.m. in Room
2020, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Drew Ferguson [chair-
man of the subcommittee] presiding.
Chairman FERGUSON. We will call the subcommittee to order.
Welcome today to today’s hearing on Social Security Administra-
tion’s role in combating identity fraud.
When the Social Security Administration began issuing Social
Security numbers in 1936, they were simply used to track workers’
earnings and administer the Social Security program. Times have
changed dramatically since then, and now the Social Security num-
ber, or SSN, is the linchpin of American identity. SSNs are used
for a number of reasons, some required by law, others not. If you
want a job, you must—or if you want to buy a home, if you want
to open a credit card, you need a Social Security number.
But after countless data breaches, it is clear that Social Security
numbers are far from safe and far from a secret. In 2022 alone,
there were more than 1,100 data breaches that included Social Se-
curity numbers. So it should come as no surprise that the Social
Security number is still an attractive target for criminals and
fraudsters, and that identity theft is real—is a real threat to mil-
lions of Americans, and that includes our children and our seniors.
In 2021, roughly 1.25 million children were the victims of iden-
tity fraud, which cost American families real time, real money, and
real worry to resolve this crime. The last thing that somebody
needs when they are trying to protect themselves or a loved one
from identity fraud is red tape. But unfortunately, resolving an
issue related to a stolen Social Security number can be a long and
complex ordeal, placing additional burdens on victims, and it ex-
tends time for criminals and fraudsters to misuse the Social Secu-
rity number.
As the creator and issuer of Social Security numbers, the Social
Security Administration is uniquely positioned to not only combat
Social Security number fraud, but also protect people whose Social
Security numbers have been compromised from harm due to iden-
tity fraud. But Social Security’s policies don’t always make things
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easy. Today we will have an opportunity to hear firsthand about
how difficult it is to resolve issues related to lost Social Security
numbers or stolen Social Security numbers and discuss some ways
that the Social Security Administration can make it easier for
Americans to protect themselves from harm before it occurs.
If a burglar breaks into your house, you call the police. They
don’t tell you to wait a few weeks and hope that your situation im-
proves. Instead, they send an officer to respond. It is not always
how victims of identity theft are treated, and that is a problem.
The American people deserve a similar response from government
services when they are victims of identity theft. That is why I have
partnered with Ranking Member Larson to reintroduce the Improv-
ing Social Security Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act that
would require the Social Security Administration to provide a sin-
gle point of contact for individuals whose numbers have been mis-
used, and to help resolve cases as quickly as possible.
We have also had a chance to hear from both—we will also have
a chance to hear from both Social Security Administration and its
Office of Inspector General about ongoing efforts at the agency to
combat identity fraud and the ways these can be improved. The
agency’s records are valuable anti-fraud tools because they asso-
ciate the numbers, Social Security numbers, with other verified
identity data such as the name, date of birth, and date of death.
In limited cases, these records have been leveraged to help combat
fraud by sharing death data with other Federal and state agencies,
and by partnering with the private sector to establish Electronic
Consent-Based Social Security Verification number, or the ECBSV.
But as we will hear today, there is more that the SSA and Con-
gress can do to improve the effectiveness of these efforts. Identity
theft is a serious issue, and we all have a responsibility to do a bet-
ter job of protecting Americans from this threat and to restore the
public trust.
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today, and we look
forward to your testimony.
Chairman FERGUSON. I am pleased to recognize the ranking
member from Connecticut, Mr. Larson, for his opening statement.
Sir, you are recognized.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am honored to
join with you in terms of putting forward this legislation.
As you have indicated in your remarks, identity theft is vitally
important to the American people, as is Social Security itself, the
nation’s number-one insurance plan, the nation’s number-one pro-
gram with respect to making sure that our elderly stay off of pov-
erty and our children stay off of poverty. And more veterans, of
course, rely on Social Security disability than they do the VA. Yet
important as identity theft is—and it is, and we must take it seri-
ous—it is also important that we fund Social Security appro-
priately.
And the Social Security Administration is the most effective and
efficient agency we have in the Federal Government. In insurance
parlance, they operate at what is called a 99 percent loss ratio. I
come from an insurance capital. That means that they are able to
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operate their agency and serve the more than 66 million Americans
with under 1 percent administrative costs. They don’t need to be
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cut, they need to be enhanced, and especially in this area of iden-
tity fraud, as well.
And so I think it is incumbent upon us not only to strengthen
the Social Security Administration so they are capable of doing
their job, especially after the devastation we have seen from the
pandemic and what that has done all across the country and the
nation, and specifically with a agency—there is no other Federal
agency, none, that operates and administers what it has to do with
under one percent. That is incredible. We should be striving to
make a model of what Social Security does and how effective they
have been in terms of getting—because they certainly, as we all
would agree, having talked to our constituents, can do better.
So, Mr. Chairman, I as well wanted to do this, as well as at the
start. I have a card for everybody. You even have your picture on
it there, Mr. Chairman. But I am going to have them pass it out
for both Democrats and Republicans. I intend to give these to ev-
eryone in the Congress. And I hope that we can join together, be-
cause I think the most important thing that we can do with regard
to identity theft and with regard to Social Security is enhance the
program. And Social Security has not been enhanced since Richard
Nixon was the President of the United States in 1971. There have
been no improvements.
So, when you get your card—and Mr. Chairman, I took the lib-
erty—you know, I blew up your card and my card, but everyone is
going to get these. And on it, it will tell you just how many Social
Security recipients you have in your district, and then it will break
it down to those children in your district that are getting Social Se-
curity, to those veterans that are getting that Social Security. But
most importantly, and something we don’t talk enough about as
well, is how this is an engine for economic recovery.
Mr. Chairman, you have 161,374 Social Security recipients in
Georgia’s 3rd, and monthly your district gets $270 million comes
into the district. That is incredible. I have 147,662 Social Security
recipients who get $270 million monthly. We have not improved or
enhanced that in 52 years. A gallon of milk cost $0.72 in 1971. Ob-
viously, everybody on this committee knows what has happened in
terms of prices.
And when you add that to what we are living in now, in terms
of what political scientists and historians are calling a poly-crisis,
when you look at what is happening globally, just in the area of,
let’s say, the pandemic, the supply chain issues, the ensuing global
inflation, and then add to that a global war—that is, in essence,
what the Ukraine war amounts to—and you look at the pressure,
who is the group that that impacts the most? Seniors. How so?
Everybody knows this, but we don’t talk about it enough. Of the
more than slightly over 1.2 million people who have perished in
this pandemic, 855,000 were over the age of 65. Of the people that
are impacted the most on inflation, those are people on fixed in-
comes. Those are the 66 million people on Social Security. They
need our help, and they need it now, not only in terms of protecting
identity theft, but most importantly, the theft of not having their
Congress do what it should do. Five million of our fellow Americans
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get below-poverty-level checks, having worked all their lives, and
paid into a system that only Congress can change.
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Chairman FERGUSON. Mr. Larson, you are about a minute over
here, and we all appreciate and share——
Mr. LARSON. My passion. I’m sorry that I went over time.
Chairman FERGUSON. Quite all right. This is an important
topic, an important program. And in the coming months——
Mr. LARSON. I apologize, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
[Laughter.]
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. And while all of the points
that you made are worthy of intense debate and discussion, today
we do not want to miss an opportunity to focus on a very important
topic, which is identity fraud, and so now I will introduce our wit-
nesses.
Mr. Sean Brune is the deputy commissioner for systems and
chief information officer at the Social Security Administration.
Ms. Katie Wechsler is the co-executive director at Consumer
First Coalition.
Ms. Margaret Hayward is a private citizen and a mother of three
who has been invited to share her personal experience trying to re-
solve an issue related to her daughter’s lost Social Security num-
ber.
I would also like to take a point of privilege to recognize your
husband and children who are here. Thank you for joining us, as
well. We are glad to have you here and look forward to the com-
mentary from the back row back there. [Laughter.]
Chairman FERGUSON. Mr. Robert Roach—good to see you
again—as President of the Alliance for Retired Americans.
And Mr. Jeffrey Brown is the deputy assistant inspector general
at the Office of Audits for the Office of Inspector General at the So-
cial Security Administration.
Welcome to you all and thank you for your time today.
Mr. Brune, your written statement has been made part of the
record, and you are now recognized for five minutes, sir.
STATEMENT OF SEAN BRUNE, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR
SYSTEMS AND CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, SOCIAL SECU-
RITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. BRUNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lar-
son, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me
to discuss Social Security Administration’s role in combating iden-
tity theft. I am Sean Brune, the Deputy Commissioner for Systems
and Chief Information Officer for SSA.
Today I will talk about our efforts to mitigate the harm resulting
from criminals who try to misuse SSNs for their own gain. All of
us play a role in finding the solutions to this misuse, and I greatly
appreciate the subcommittee’s many years of work on this impor-
tant issue.
The Social Security Act of 1935 did not mandate the use of SSNs,
but it did authorize the creation of a record-keeping system for ac-
curate wage reporting. We designed the SSN to allow employers to
uniquely identify and properly report individual earnings, and to
help us track earnings, determine eligibility for benefits, and pay
the correct amount. Today, almost 90 years later, the SSN remains
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at the core of our record-keeping, and is essential to carrying out
our mission.
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Over many decades, use of the SSN for non-programmed pur-
poses has spread. Businesses now use the SSN to track, identify,
and exchange information about individuals. Data aggregators
amass and sell large volumes of personal information, including
SSNs, collected by businesses. As SSN use has expanded, so have
incentives to obtain fraudulent SSNs.
At one time it may have been helpful to use the SSN as secret
information, something that would only be known by the person to
whom the SSN was assigned. That is no longer the case and has
not been the case for many decades. The SSN was never and will
never be evidence of someone’s identity. It is simply a number asso-
ciated with specific individual—with a specific individual in our
records.
Over time, SSN misuse and identity theft, including synthetic
identity theft, have continued to persist. Identity thieves have
learned to target children because of their credit history are clean,
and their records may be used for years before anyone realizes
someone has stolen their identities or misused their SSN. None of
this is acceptable.
We understand the frustration, distress, and economic hardship
SSN misuse and identity theft causes victims. As a matter of prac-
tice, online and in our field offices we provide individuals who sus-
pect their identities have been stolen with up-to-date information
about steps they can take to minimize the damage caused by the
criminals. We also help to prevent identity theft by continuing to
work with government agencies and external groups to raise
awareness of the problem. And we support our Office of Inspector
General Office of Investigation in their law enforcement efforts to
stop identity theft.
Awareness, however, is only part of the answer. Even though we
advise people to keep their SSN confidential, public and private
data leaks have greatly reduced the likelihood that SSNs are se-
cret. This is why SSA’s lawfully authorized electronic SSN
verifications have become so important. Annually, we perform over
2 billion automated SSN verifications through more than 3,500
data exchanges. Using electronic systems such as our Social Secu-
rity Number Verification Service and the Electronic Consent-Based
Verification Service, we are making it harder for identity thieves
to operate.
Given the importance of our electronic SSN verifications in de-
fending against synthetic identity fraud, we are also working to ex-
pand the ability of Federal benefits programs to use these services
as part of their identity verification processes. We intend to enable
Federal benefit programs to verify SSNs directly or through other
Federal agencies using real-time verification requests.
We understand the significant challenges associated with iden-
tity theft, with both—within both government and private sector.
As long as the SSN remains key to accessing things of value, the
SSN itself will have commercial value, and it will continue to be
targeted for misuse. SSA will continue to do what we can to pre-
vent and mitigate the effects of SSN use, misuse, and identity
theft. We stand ready to work with you and with other government
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and private industry partners as you consider ways to protect
Americans’ personal information.
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Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions.
[The statement of Mr. Brune follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Brune.
Ms. Wechsler, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF KATIE WECHSLER, CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CONSUMER FIRST COALITION
Ms. WECHSLER. Chairman Ferguson, Ranking Member Larson,
and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity
to testify on SSA’s role in combating identity fraud.
I am here to discuss a top priority of the Consumer First Coali-
tion: preventing synthetic identity fraud through the use of SSA’s
Electronic Consent-Based SSN Verification, or ECBSV service, a
service that, on a bipartisan basis, Congress directed SSA to estab-
lish.
A criminal creates a synthetic identity by combining real infor-
mation such as a person’s SSN with fabricated information, using
that to apply for credit, and having a credit report created at the
credit bureaus. With some patience, the criminal will spend time
building up the credit profile of the synthetic identity. Later, the
criminal obtains a large credit limit, maxes it out, and vanishes.
The victims are the owners of the stolen Social Security numbers,
many of whom are children.
Over one million children a year are victims of identity theft. The
fraud may only be uncovered years later, when an 18-year-old ap-
plies for a student loan or credit card. Undoing synthetic identity
fraud is a huge burden on that individual and his parents. This
fraud costs the credit industry billions in losses every year, making
credit more costly for all.
Recognizing this fraud problem in the mid-2000s, SSA used its
existing legal authority to create a paper-based service, enabling
users, for a fee, to verify whether a name, date of birth, and SSN
matched SSA’s records, with written consent from the SSN holder.
That paper-based process is too slow for our increasingly digital
credit system.
In 2018 Congress mandated that SSA create an electronic, real-
time version of the paper-based system. Thus, ECBSV became part
of SSA’s mission. This committee was essential to that enactment,
as it unanimously passed the legislation that ultimately became
the law.
The ECBSV system allows financial institutions, with a con-
sumer’s electronic consent, to verify whether a name, date of birth,
and SSN combination match SSA’s records. The response is either
a match or no-match result. Twenty-two entities use the system,
many of whom are service providers submitting on behalf of mul-
tiple financial institutions.
Our coalition has worked closely with SSA since the 2018 law
was passed. I want to focus on the execution of this congressional
mandate.
Improvements are necessary for the viability of the program. I do
not say this lightly. The ECBSV system is at risk of collapse if
changes are not made.
First, SSA must extend the timeframe for recovering the cost of
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the system. The law mandates that users fully reimburse SSA, and
we wholly accept that obligation. However, SSA is attempting to re-
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cover $38 million in the next 3 years, a deadline not in the enact-
ing statute, by substantially increasing user fees.
There was a price increase last April and another one takes ef-
fect in July. Some users will be expected to pay more than 22 times
what they originally paid for the exact same system. If this con-
tinues, it is highly likely that current and potential users will be
deterred. Some users may stop altogether, and some may submit
transactions only for high-risk scenarios. That means fewer trans-
actions, which could cause SSA to increase the fees again for the
remaining users. That is not viable.
We ask Congress and SSA to work with us to extend the cost re-
covery timeframe to 10 years.
Second, SSA should explore ways to provide further detail on a
no-match result. It is impossible to determine, based on that result
alone, if there is synthetic identity fraud. Data shows that roughly
40 percent of the no-match results are fraud, while the rest are
typos or another benign issue. Enhancements to the technology of
the system and additional granularity, all while protecting con-
sumers’ privacy and data, are worth exploring. This could signifi-
cantly improve the usefulness of the system and attract more
users.
Finally, SSA should consider how else ECBSV could be used.
Other entities in both the public and private sector may find this
system worthwhile. We have a vested interest in ensuring ECBSV
is a success, as it could be a model of good government and public-
private collaboration. If it fails, the only people that benefit are
criminals.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to
your questions.
[The statement of Ms. Wechsler follows:]
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26
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Ms. Wechsler.
Ms. Hayward, we now look forward to hearing from you. You are
recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MARGARET HAYWARD, PRIVATE CITIZEN AND
MOTHER OF THREE
Ms. HAYWARD. Chairman Ferguson, Ranking Member Larson,
and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity
to share our family’s story with you.
Through no fault of her own, our infant daughter’s identity was
put at risk when she was just a few weeks old. This experience has
been stressful for our family during an already vulnerable time and
is something that I hope other families won’t ever experience.
At the beginning of August last year, my husband and I wel-
comed our third child shortly after relocating to Pennsylvania.
When she was seven weeks old, I realized we had never received
her Social Security card. I checked the Social Security Administra-
tion’s website, and saw it was taking about three weeks to issue
them. Being well beyond that window, I immediately called the 1–
800 SSA telephone number.
When I reached an SSA representative, he listened to my con-
cerns, encouraged me to be patient, and give it a few more weeks.
He told me it didn’t matter if she had been assigned a number or
not, because either way I could just complete the form requesting
a new card. I told him from an identity standpoint, it did matter.
It mattered significantly. If she had already been issued a card, her
identity could be at risk because someone else could have it. Ac-
cording to that representative, our only option was to request a
new card. I could not receive her social security number over the
phone so we could begin the process of protecting her identity.
Marcy and I would have to visit a field office, and the only way to
be assured her identity was protected—assigning a new number—
was not an option.
Going anywhere with a newborn, much less waiting at a govern-
ment office, is no small feat. For us, this requirement became extra
challenging. I planned to go to the Social Security office right away.
However, just hours after I called, our daughter became acutely ill
and was admitted to the hospital for RSV. Three weeks later our
child was finally healthy and durable enough to visit our local So-
cial Security office in person.
Off we finally went to the SSA field office to complete our online
request for a new card and find out our daughter’s Social Security
number. The visit followed the same pattern. It was once again
suggested I be patient and give it more time. And contrary to what
the telephone representative told me, they also would not provide
me with our daughter’s assigned number. All we could do was fi-
nalize the request of a replacement card and wait.
When it comes to protecting your child, waiting, and hoping is
not an acceptable course of action.
When Marcy was three months old, the replacement card ar-
rived, and we finally learned our daughter’s Social Security num-
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ber. It was only then that we were able to begin the laborious proc-
ess of monitoring and protecting her credit through each of the
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27
non-government credit bureaus. Her original card remains unac-
counted for and could be in anyone’s hands.
The Social Security Administration personnel made what was al-
ready a stressful time even more difficult with inconsistent and in-
accurate information. On top of the frustration, we had to weigh
the risks of bringing a medically fragile baby to a field office to
move the process of protecting her forward. Each interaction went
the same way: repeating our situation and pushing to be connected
to the right resources.
Many parents don’t have the education, time, or experience navi-
gating complex systems that I do, and until this is fixed, it is their
children who stand to lose the most.
Before she was even a month old, a vital piece of our daughter’s
identity was compromised. And she has no choice but to use that
number for life. As long as we are successful at protecting her,
Marcy won’t meet the SSA’s threshold to receive a new number. At
best, she will be inconvenienced with a locked credit forever.
A singular, knowledgeable point of contact within the SSA who
was familiar with our case and could help us navigate this process
would have been immensely helpful. A new Social Security number
for our daughter would prevent us and someday her from a lifetime
of credit and identity monitoring, saving hours of time and years
of stress and attention.
Prior to our daughter’s birth, I worked as a family nurse practi-
tioner. And when it comes to one’s health, prevention is so much
more valuable than treatment. I would like to see the SSA apply
the same philosophy to identity protection. Even the threat of iden-
tity compromise is time consuming and exhausting.
I am heartened by the subcommittee’s focus on this important
issue and implore you to continue your work to ultimately pass leg-
islation that will give my family and so many others readily attain-
able peace of mind. Thank you so much for allowing me to share
our family’s story with you today.
[The statement of Ms. Hayward follows:]
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Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Ms. Hayward.
Mr. Roach, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT ROACH, PRESIDENT, ALLIANCE FOR
RETIRED AMERICANS
Mr. ROACH. Good afternoon. I am Robert Roach, president of
the Alliance for Retired Americans. I would like to thank Sub-
committee Chairman Ferguson and Ranking Member Larson, my
good friend, and members of this committee for this opportunity to
testify and participate in this hearing.
Founded in 2001, the Alliance is a grassroots organization with
4.1 million members in 38 states working to strengthen retirement
security for all. Nearly 66 million Americans, 1 out of every 5
households, rely on Social Security’s lifetime guaranteed benefits.
These benefits are essential to all who rely on them, including sen-
iors, people with disabilities, and their families of deceased workers
[sic].
All Americans are rightly concerned about identity theft. Last
week, as part of our Older Americans Month celebration, the Alli-
ance held a retiree town hall with the Social Security Administra-
tion commissioner. During that event she specifically addressed the
issues of fraud and identity theft and the efforts that SSA is mak-
ing to combat them. We applaud SSA’s efforts to increase public
awareness of fraud and identity theft.
If the already short-staffed Social Security Administration was
forced to cut the budget by 22 percent as prescribed in House Bill
2811, the agency’s work to protect Americans from identity theft
would be hampered. In fact, the drastic funding cuts in the bill
would dramatically reduce the services beneficiaries depend on.
Less staff and fewer field offices will mean much longer waits for
people who need information about their Social Security and Medi-
care benefits. People applying for Social Security and disability
benefits will have to wait two months longer than they do now.
Instead of shrinking the Social Security Administration’s budget,
Congress needs to strengthen the program, including providing
adequate funding to administrate it. Administrative expenses come
from Social Security trust fund paid for by workers and employers.
The Social Security Administration’s funding must be predictable
year over year, especially at a time when 10,000 Americans turn
65 each year.
Another way to strengthen Social Security is by passing legisla-
tion such as the Ranking Member’s—Larson’s soon-to-be-reintro-
duced Social Security 2100 Act. Among the most critical items, it
increases Social Security benefits, extends solvency of Social Secu-
rity—of the Social Security Trust Fund. It repeals the windfall
elimination provision and the government provision offset.
The practical way to strengthen Social Security is by lifting the
cap on Social Security payroll taxes above the current $160,200; re-
quire the wealthy of us to pay their fair share into the system.
This is more about—this is much more about the numbers and
how we pay for something. This is about people. Firsthand, I have
seen people standing in line, senior citizens at my supermarket and
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other supermarkets, who are leaving food at the cashier because
they are unable to pay for food, food that they normally and cus-
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34
tomarily buy. Coming from Pentagon City, where we spent $800
billion a year to protect the nation from foreign adversaries, less
than a mile away people are making decisions whether to buy food
or medicine on a daily basis. In the world’s most powerful, richest
country in the world, this is just unacceptable.
This is now a family issue because now—and everybody has a
story. This is a family issue because, as people grow older and be-
cause of the dwindling income that they have, because of the deci-
mation of pension plans and Social Security has not kept pace with
inflation, everybody has a story about how they are taking care of
parents and grandparents. Some of us have resources and others
don’t.
In this—at this committee in 2019 you heard the story of Katrina
Brown, who was on her way to being a doctor, full scholarship to
Ivy League colleges. And because her mother got sick, all that got
put aside. Those are a few examples underlying our country’s des-
perate need to expand Social Security benefits.
Social Security importance cannot be overstated because the de-
cline in traditional pension plans, decades of stagnant wages that
have made it harder for individuals to save for retirement. It is
sapping our human resources because the youth are now taking
care of grandma and grandpa.
The U.S. Labor Department representatives for pensions and re-
tirement say that almost two-thirds of beneficiaries receive 50 per-
cent or more of their total income from monthly Social Security
checks. And one-third of elderly beneficiaries count on Social Secu-
rity to provide 90 percent or more of their income.
Moreover, Social Security benefits are insufficient, evidenced by
the average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker,
which is a modest $1,833 a month.
Our members are frustrated. Instead of acting—we want com-
mon-sense changes enacted, and we want it done on a bipartisan
basis. This is not a White problem. This is not a Black problem.
This is not a Hispanic problem or an Asian problem. This is an
American problem. And we anticipate, we hope that the united
Congress will pass a bill, 2100 Act or something similar, and work
together to fix this problem for all Americans and all their families.
We are in desperate times, and we put our faith and our hope in
the good people that we send to Congress to help us fix our prob-
lems.
[The statement of Mr. Roach follows:]
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43
Mr. ROACH. These proposals——
Chairman FERGUSON. Mr. Roach, thank you for your testi-
mony. Your time has expired. I look forward to continuing the con-
versation.
Mr. Brown, you are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF JEFFREY BROWN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT IN-
SPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF AUDITS, OFFICE OF THE IN-
SPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. BROWN. Thank you and good afternoon, Chairman Fer-
guson, Ranking Member Larson, and members of the sub-
committee.
I commend you for holding this important hearing today on the
Social Security Administration’s role in combating identity fraud.
Social Security touches the lives of every American. About 175
million people work and pay Social Security taxes, and nearly 67
million receive a Social Security benefit each month.
As we heard in earlier testimony, the SSN was originally in-
tended to track earnings, but it has become the de facto national
identifier. This has given rise to individuals using other people’s
SSNs for illegal purposes. And as the chairman said in his opening
remarks, the SSN has become the linchpin to identity theft, one of
the fastest growing crimes in America, affecting millions each year.
The Office of the Inspector General, or OIG, plays a vital role in
combating SSN misuse and identity theft. And throughout our his-
tory, SSN misuse has been a priority in our oversight efforts. OIG
has established a multi-disciplinary team of professionals that de-
velop and implement innovative approaches to combat identity
theft and scams. This is done through audits, criminal investiga-
tions, and prosecution, civil enforcement, and public outreach and
education. I would like to briefly touch on these approaches.
The OIG’s Office of Audit identifies vulnerabilities in SSA’s pro-
grams and operations that may result in identity theft. Our audits
found, among other things, instances where fraudsters improperly
used the SSN of older adults and deceased children.
Our audit work also examined potential vulnerabilities in the
Internet services that SSA offers. Since the COVID–19 pandemic,
users rely heavily on e-services, increasing the need for our over-
sight. We found that bad actors exploited some of NSA’s public-fac-
ing systems to potentially commit identity fraud. These instances
underscore the need for SSA to thoroughly evaluate its systems
to—for potential vulnerabilities to ensure users are who they claim
to be, and that systems aren’t misused.
Many of the cases our Office of Investigations has successfully
conducted involve SSN misuse, including synthetic identity theft.
As we heard earlier, synthetic identity theft is a unique form of
fraud that combines the SSNs of real people with fraudulent infor-
mation, such as false names and dates of birth, to create new iden-
tities. It is one of the most difficult forms of fraud to detect because
fraudsters build good credit over time using a fake profile before
making fraudulent charges and abandoning the identity.
For example, in one of our joint investigations individuals were
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charged with using approximately 700 synthetic identities between
January 2017 and August 2020 to open bank accounts and credit
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44
cards and to create shell companies. They are alleged to have
fraudulently obtained over $20 million from the Payroll Protection
Program. The pandemic resulted in criminals finding ways, such as
the case I just mentioned, to fraudulently take advantage of the in-
fusion of trillions of dollars in Federal funding.
Identity theft is a common thread running through many inves-
tigations related to the misuse of pandemic relief funds. Since the
start of the pandemic, OIG has engaged with other law enforce-
ment agencies, and we have been involved in over 150 investiga-
tions related to pandemic relief programs, funds, and scams.
For over a decade, the American public has been plagued by
scammers impersonating government agencies with the goal of
stealing money or personal information, including SSNs. Safe-
guarding the public from financial fraud and scams is a top priority
for the OIG. We hold a National Slam the Scam Day each year.
This campaign amplifies our outreach efforts and encourages the
public to hang up or ignore suspicious calls or messages. In other
words, to slam the scam.
We thank the Members of Congress for helping to educate your
constituents to protect themselves from Social Security-related and
other government imposter scams.
In conclusion, I want to thank the subcommittee for inviting me
here today to highlight OIG’s oversight and outreach efforts in
combating and preventing misuse of SSNs.
I will be pleased to answer any questions you have.
[The statement of Mr. Brown follows:]
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53
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Brown. We are now
pleased to recognize the chairman of the full committee, our col-
league from Missouri, Jason Smith.
Mr. Smith, you are now recognized for five minutes for an open-
ing statement. Thank you for joining us today.
Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Ferguson, Ranking
Member Larson. Thank you all for the opportunity to share a few
remarks on an important topic that affects every American.
We all know someone who has had to go through the ordeal of
identity theft. One of the reasons I wanted to hold this hearing was
after learning about, about everything our former colleague, Gov-
ernor Kristi Noem, had to deal with after Congress publicly dis-
closed the Social Security numbers of her, her husband, all of her
children, and her son-in-law. I asked the governor to share with
this committee about her experience, the difficulties since her fam-
ily’s numbers were made available to the public, and what reforms
we should consider through our jurisdiction to help families who
find themselves in a similar unfortunate circumstance.
I have with me a statement from Governor Noem expressing her
appreciation for and interest in the committee holding today’s hear-
ing. Governor Noem writes in part, ‘‘It is troublesome enough that
identity thieves and fraudsters can try to steal our personal infor-
mation right out from under us. But the government should not be
doing fraudsters favors by improperly disclosing these important
numbers that provide intimate access to one’s identity. Further-
more, government should also be a help and not a hindrance for
those whose Social Security numbers have been compromised.’’
‘‘While disclosing your Social Security number for a legitimate
purpose causes millions to take a pause, it is even more alarming
when a citizen can’t trust their own government to keep their per-
sonally identifying information secure. Unfortunately, that is ex-
actly what happened to me and my family when Congress exposed
the Social Security numbers of me, as well as that of my husband,
my three children, and son-in-law to the entire world.’’
Governor Noem goes on to describe how the disclosure occurred,
and how she found out. ‘‘In December of 2020 my family and I pro-
vided our Social Security numbers to the White House as part of
an official visit in my capacity as governor of South Dakota. How-
ever, these records went unredacted to the National Archives, and
were provided to the United States Congress. They were then need-
lessly and carelessly published, again without redaction, for all
those on the Internet.’’
‘‘Unbelievable as that is, of equal concern I learned of the public
disclosure of our private information through reports in the media.
That is outrageous. It wasn’t a call from the Social Security Admin-
istration or from any of the governmental bodies who published our
personal information for millions to see. Failing at each turn to
safeguard the personal information entrusted to it, instead, I
learned from the media and reporters who reached out about the
disclosure.’’
In her statement Governor Noem also highlights the financial
fallout from this experience that has already occurred, and the bur-
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den on her family going forward. She writes, ‘‘My family has al-
ready had to spend time and money to protect ourselves from the
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54
government’s careless disclosure of our personal information. And
already, bad actors have tried to use that information to their ad-
vantage. It may be years before we experience the full impact of
this disclosure. But for the foreseeable future, we must closely
monitor every financial transaction we see, realizing there may be
ones out there we never see.’’
‘‘Congress needs to take steps to not only better protect the So-
cial Security numbers of American citizens, but for those who do
have their numbers compromised, at a minimum, make sure they
are made aware of such a disclosure.’’
‘‘Additionally, we must cut the bureaucracy and red tape one
must go through when trying to navigate the cumbersome and dif-
ficult situation of replacing their own or their child’s Social Secu-
rity number, once it is compromised.’’
I ask unanimous consent to insert the governor’s entire state-
ment into the record.
Chairman FERGUSON. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
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Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. Thank you again to the wit-
nesses for your testimony. We will now begin with the question-
and-answer session, and I will begin.
Ms. Hayward, thank you again for being here today, and thank
you for sharing your story. You touched in your testimony about
the difficulties that you experienced in trying to solve this problem.
Tell us a little bit how a single point of contact would have been—
would have made this easier for you.
Ms. HAYWARD. A single point of contact would allow a certain
amount of consistency, obviously. That would have been so helpful.
I wouldn’t have been jockeying around and starting from scratch
every time I was interacting with a representative or a person, an
employee in the office. And having one person who could follow up
with me and make sure that I was doing what I should be doing,
make sure that, you know, there wasn’t anything that could be
done to, you know, move things more quickly. Because as we have
learned through the testimony today, you know, it sounds like the
time that you don’t know your number is time that you can’t be
protecting your child, in my case.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay, thank you. This is a follow-up
question. You have obviously spent a lot of time on this. Personal
resources that you and your family have had to expend on this.
What do you think that cost is?
Ms. HAYWARD. It is impossible to quantify the amount of time
that we have spent, the worry, freezing her credit, trying to navi-
gate all of the different elements between the Social Security Ad-
ministration, FTC resources, the three non-government credit bu-
reaus. And that is to say nothing of our actual experience just try-
ing to acquire her replacement card. We have had to squeeze this
in between school pickups, doctor’s appointments, hospitalizations,
and woken up in the middle of the night occasionally worrying
about this.
And this isn’t going to go away either after this hearing. It will
continue to be with us unless our daughter is able to get a new So-
cial Security number.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Mr. Brune, if—when someone like Ms. Hayward has a problem
like this, what do you think the cost of that is to the agency in
terms of a dollar amount to help solve this problem? I mean, what
kind of resources does it take?
Mr. BRUNE. Chairman Ferguson, in our field offices and on our
800 number, we strive to provide courteous and empathetic profes-
sional service to each person who visits or calls. Each contact is
handled with great care, according to our policy——
Chairman FERGUSON. I understand. I am looking for a number
here. Does it cost—do you think it costs $1,000, $10,000,
$20,000——
Mr. BRUNE. I——
Chairman FERGUSON [continuing]. In agency resources to ad-
dress the problem?
Mr. BRUNE. Well, you know, I am an IT guy, not the CFO.
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Chairman FERGUSON. All right. Well, I will tell you what, why
don’t we go to Mr. Brown?
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Do you have a rough idea of the costs associated with resolving—
an average cost of resolving a particular case?
Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have that information.
The agency does have costs associated with its——
[Audio malfunction.]
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay, thank you.
Ms. Wechsler, the Social Security Administration, as you noted
in your testimony, it will be updating its fee structure on the
ECBSV service. I think you mentioned that you have got concerns
about how this would, you know, would impact usage. Can you dive
into that just a little further, and tell us what you anticipate?
Ms. WECHSLER. Thank you for the question. I would be happy
to.
We do think this new tier structure is going to discourage use
from both the current users and possible users that aren’t quite
using the system. I want to give one example to help quantify this.
So, one user that initially was expected to pay $276,500 is about
to be expected to pay $6.25 million for the same service. That is
22-fold increase over just 2 years. That discourages use. There is
no way about that it does not discourage use. That is like Netflix
saying your $15 a month subscription is going up to $330. So, our
concerns is this tight timeframe for them to recover their cost is
creating a vicious cycle. It would be less users, and then the cost
would have to increase again.
So, we want to work with SSA and Congress to make sure that
does not happen because that is in no one’s interest.
Chairman FERGUSON. Mr. Brune, it is my understanding that
the Administration did not conduct an analysis of how increasing
the fees on the system would affect utilization. So how did you de-
termine the initial fee structure, and what considerations have
been made for the subsequent fee structures?
Mr. BRUNE. Thank you for the question, Chairman Ferguson.
The fee structure is based on input from the coalition and indus-
try partners who use the service, and their expected volume of
verifications, as well as guided by the statute that authorized the
program, ECBSV, and appropriations law, which requires us to col-
lect our costs for building and operating the system within a spe-
cific period of time.
Chairman FERGUSON. It seems like Ms. Wechsler has an excel-
lent point, that if you increase fees so rapidly, that it is going to
discourage use. Was that not taken into account when this new fee
structure was put in place?
Mr. BRUNE. We have had extensive conversations and ongoing
discussion with the coalition Ms. Wechsler represents. And our in-
tent is to incentivize usage, thereby increasing the, you know, num-
ber of verifications and generating more fees.
Chairman FERGUSON. Well, I——
Mr. BRUNE. We are open to further discussion with you about
ways to resolve this challenge, and we do want to make it an effi-
cient and effective service.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Brown, obviously, Social Security number fraud and theft is
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a real problem, and it has been done for, basically, the same way
for a number of years now. A real threat on the horizon is artificial
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58
intelligence. Have you been able—has your office been able to look
at criminal activity around artificial intelligence?
And also, do you think that your office and the Administration
is prepared to address theft via artificial intelligence in the future?
Mr. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is absolutely a
rapidly evolving technology that I think we are all trying to keep
up with. And I think it is important for the agency and for the OIG
to monitor this very closely.
Artificial intelligence has, I think, the opportunity for tremen-
dous benefit to the agency in helping to process claims and handle
its workloads. But there is also considerable risk if it gets in the
hands of bad actors, risks that we can’t even contemplate at this
point.
There has been an incident a few years ago where it did appear
that artificial intelligence was calling the Social Security Adminis-
tration to try to process direct deposit changes on behalf of Social
Security beneficiaries. And we worked with the agency to alert its
employees of this scam.
But like I said, it is a rapidly evolving technology, and we need
to keep tabs on this very closely.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. I now recognize the ranking
member, Mr. Larson.
You are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. LARSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank all of our witnesses also. And I am sorry the chairman had
to leave, but I completely concur with him that there is—that is a
travesty, what happened to Governor Noem, and we should be
doing everything to make sure that sensitive data like that is al-
ways redacted. And that is a shame.
I also want to thank the witnesses, especially Ms. Hayward.
You are a model for what an American citizen should be in terms
of impacting your family directly, and then seeking a resolution,
and then making sure that you are speaking out for the, as you in-
dicated, the many mothers who perhaps aren’t in the same situa-
tion like you and have taken the time and care—or have that time
and care to do that.
Mr. Brune, how is it that her situation cannot be resolved more
timely, and given the individual the security and the notion that
this is being looked into?
Mr. BRUNE. Congressman Larson, we regret the stress and con-
fusion that was caused to Ms. Hayward. We do strive to provide
timely answers. We are glad that the replacement for the SSN card
was, in fact, issued after her field office visit, and we would be
happy to work with Ms. Hayward to identify if there are any other
ways that we might improve our service.
Mr. LARSON. Well, it seems to me like—and I know that there
is difficulty in getting a new card, but her testimony seemed to in-
dicate that she is not going to feel secure until they have been
issued a new card. How long should that take?
Mr. BRUNE. In the state of Pennsylvania, where Ms. Hayward
lives, I believe three weeks for the issuance of the card is still the
case. Once it processes through our——
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Mr. LARSON. Well, could we charge you to be personally respon-
sible to make sure that this matter gets looked into?
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59
And listen, as I said in my opening statement—and everybody
should know this, as well, and I think Mr. Brown brought it up
when you asked him the question, Mr. Chairman—there are costs
associated with all this, aren’t there?
And has the Social Security Administration been funded appro-
priately?
Mr. BROWN. We have not done audit work to look at whether
SSA has been funded appropriately.
Mr. LARSON. And to make this technological—and the chairman
is completely right, too, about artificial intelligence. After all the
hearings that we have had on this and the capability that exists
out there, we better get prepared really quick to deal with this.
And that is not going to be something that we say we can reshuffle
the agency and they are going to be able to do this on their own.
That is simply isn’t going to happen.
And most importantly, when we are talking about all of this—
and Ms. Wechsler, you brought it up, and I am empathetic to your
concerns, but you too said—what is the cost, $38 million I think
you referenced?
You know, again, the agency has got to be able, again, to deal
with the—Mr. Roach pointed out—the 10,000 Baby Boomers a day
become eligible for Social Security—a day. That is 3,650,000 a year.
So, it will be over 70,000 Social Security recipients within a couple
of years. So, we are going to need to have to fund Social Security.
We are not going to be able to solve this problem by cutting Social
Security, and cutting benefits, and cutting the agencies so that
they can deal with this problem.
And in fact, Mr. Chairman, I think we should look into, espe-
cially as it relates to artificial intelligence, what we have to do, be-
cause we may have to take that as a whole separate entity. But
noting that this is the number-one insurance program for the coun-
try, and along with Medicare and the military budget account for
70 percent of our overall budget, this is an area where I believe
that we can work in a bipartisan manner to solve this problem so
no mother—and, hopefully, because of your efforts, Ms. Hayward—
that no other mother has to go through this process.
But we have to make sure that we are providing the funding that
is needed, and further investigate technologically, along with the
humanization of our agencies as to how we can best operate.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Larson, and I do look
forward to bipartisan conversations related to this. Next we will
call on Mr. Carey.
You are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all the
witnesses for participating in this very important conversation re-
garding the role of Social Security Administration in combating
identity fraud.
As many of our panelists have mentioned, Social Security num-
bers have become a common identifier for a range of purposes be-
yond what was intended to—to tracking income and Social Security
benefits. Unfortunately, the frequent use of the Social Security
numbers has exposed Americans to fraud, identity theft, which in
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turn causes unsuspecting Americans to become victims of fraud
each year.
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While the financial loss is often borne by the financial institu-
tion, the owners of those stolen Social Security numbers are true
victims. There was a study done—and we were talking about—Ms.
Hayward mentioned unmeasurable and how—in terms of how
much it costs you. On average, we have seen an estimate that 1
in 50 children were victims of identity fraud. The average cost to
the family trying to resolve that issue is $372 in expenses. So, I
just thought I would throw those numbers out.
Recently, a constituent of mine back in my district had her bank
account hacked and her identity stolen. The constituent’s Social Se-
curity benefits were also stolen. And now the fraudster, believe this
or not, has continually contacted SSA to try to get additional infor-
mation. Now, my team back in the district is working hard to po-
tentially get the constituent back their stolen benefits. However,
we need to prevent this from ever occurring again.
As my dear friend from Georgia brought up in his opening testi-
mony, in 2021 an estimated 1.25 million children were victims of
that identity fraud. As the users of Social Security numbers, the
SSA is in a unique position to help combat theft and the misuse
of the Social Security numbers.
As Ms. Wechsler mentioned in her testimony, to combat identity
theft Congress directed the SSA to establish an Electronic Consent-
Based Verification System so no financial institution can match a
consenting—so no financial institution can match a consenting con-
sumer’s information with the Social Security numbers to verify
their identity.
Quickly, I am running short on time, Mr. Brune, why is the SSN
adhering so closely to a short timeframe to recoup the costs of im-
plementing the ECBSV?
Mr. BRUNE. The appropriations law requires us to recoup all
our costs and sets a designated timeframe for doing so.
Mr. CAREY. Okay, so what plan does the SSA have in place to
mitigate the risks of loss to the trust funds if the SSA fails to re-
coup the development and the operational costs of the ECBSV?
Mr. BRUNE. Congressman Carey, as I mentioned in my prior re-
sponse, we are committed to making sure ECBSV continues to be
an efficient and effective operating tool to combat identity theft.
We have ongoing conversations with the coalition Ms. Wechsler
represents to understand impediments to usage, and to try to ad-
dress them, with your assistance.
Mr. CAREY. Okay, so how many data exchange agreements does
the SFA—or SSA have with other Federal and state agencies?
Mr. BRUNE. In total, as I stated in my statement, we have ap-
proximately 3,500 agreements and verifications where we verify
SSN numbers and data associated with the SSN.
Mr. CAREY. Okay. I got a lot of remarks, but let me just ask
a simple question. If Ms. Hayward was worried—and she says she
has to worry about it, and I believe it, I have got a 17-month-old,
so I get it—is it possible that that card was lost in the mail, right?
Is it possible—I mean, your daughter is how old?
Ms. HAYWARD. Nine months.
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Mr. CAREY. Nine months. Is it impossible to get a new Social
Security number, instead of just a card, so we don’t have to worry
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61
about—she doesn’t have to do the monitoring like I have to do be-
cause my military records were breached?
I mean, is that something that we can do?
Mr. BRUNE. Our policy does allow for that. And we would—you
know, according to our policy, we would look at what options were
available to, in this case, the young Miss Hayward.
And it is not a panacea to issue a new number. Right as soon
as they are issued——
Mr. CAREY. But, I mean, if the kid is nine months old, I mean,
wouldn’t it be better to do that than all of a sudden, 12 years from
now, all of a sudden, we have got to go back and we found out they
have got a yacht booked off of—or booked in Boca Raton some-
place?
Mr. BRUNE. We would be happy to look into that for Ms. Hay-
ward.
Mr. CAREY. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pascrell, you are now rec-
ognized for five minutes, sir.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
every member of this committee that I have listened to for a few
years, and new folks, support efforts by the Social Security Admin-
istration. I have heard nothing different; I don’t know, maybe you
have to secure Social Security numbers and combat misuse and
scammers. I have never heard somebody stand up and support
that. You haven’t, either.
But I want to highlight how Social Security is America’s greatest
achievement. We cannot let this hearing distract us. Some folks on
your side have manufactured the crisis that threatens to blow up
America’s entire economy. If we breached the debt limit, we will
not be talking about one or two or three or thousands of frauds.
Over and over, there are those in the Congress threatening to gut
Social Security. I didn’t read that incorrectly, and I didn’t hear that
incorrectly, nor did you.
Some House members want to force Americans to retire later,
work through illness, and make financial stability harder. As sig-
nificant as this hearing is, you know it. You know this stuff al-
ready. We should be doing everything we can day in and day out
to preserve Social Security.
I mean, you talk about making public names. Look what they did
to that poor woman 14 years ago, 14 years ago. What are we talk-
ing about it now for? Well, because it is either got to be for every-
body or nobody. And the Lerner investigation, 14 Democrats made
to be axe murderers. And then no movements were made against
them. They were innocent people. All—may be funny to you, but
it is not funny to me. I just want you to know that. Fourteen of
us were investigated by the same folks you want to investigate.
And you are right in doing it. But what is good for one should be
good for all.
So, I want to ask Mr. Roach a question, if I may. My staff re-
cently met with the AFGE, the union representing frontline work-
ers at Social Security. They shared the anguish and stress of being
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unable to help callers quickly with the existing staffing levels, just
like we heard from the IRS. House Members’ default on America
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62
act would double down by slashing customer service funding. The
Republicans’ plan would cut customer service staff, clear and sim-
ple.
How would further cuts to Social Security Administration, Mr.
Roach——
Mr. ROACH. Well——
Mr. PASCRELL [continuing]. Have a budget impact, because you
have been here a little while, you know what is going on.
Mr. ROACH. Yes, the services that have been drastically cut al-
ready—further services would be cut. People trying to get disability
would have to—a much longer waiting period. And, you know, of-
fices have been closed, and people were unable to get in touch with
the Social Security office to get things done. It would be dramatic.
It would be drastic for further cuts in the Social Security Adminis-
tration.
Mr. PASCRELL. By the way, Mr. Roach, if we have a default—
and God forbid we have one—will—the members that exist in your
department, will they be able to assist beneficiaries in the event of
a default?
Mr. ROACH. I don’t think there would be any place to hide. But
I think that if there is a default, retirees will take the first brunt
of it.
Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Roach, the study committee from the other
side, God bless them, their budget plan lengthens the Medicare
waiting period from two years to five years. This denies severely
disabled Americans. There are a lot of those folks out there, Mr.
Roach, I don’t have to tell you. You could tell me better. But for
three years. What the heck is that going to mean for those people
waiting for Medicare okays?
Mr. ROACH. It means that no one with disabilities severe
enough to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance should be
without health insurance, period. It shouldn’t happen. Two years is
already two years too long to wait. So clearly, adding three more
years for anyone waiting for urgently-needed health benefits is
cruel, unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours.
Mr. PASCRELL. And there is a two-year wait for getting dis-
ability benefits, correct?
Chairman FERGUSON. The gentleman’s time——
Mr. PASCRELL. I am in the middle of the question. Can I finish
it, please?
Chairman FERGUSON. Very quickly, my friend. Very quickly.
Mr. PASCRELL. I finished the question.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay.
Mr. PASCRELL. The question. What does those three years’
weight mean?
Mr. ROACH. It means that people will be—it means—three addi-
tional years for anyone waiting for urgently-needed health benefits,
that would mean that would be cruel and unacceptable in the coun-
try, as other people would be out of their benefits for five years.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you, Mr. Roach.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for putting this together
today on this critical issue. We are all against fraud, though.
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Chairman FERGUSON. Absolutely.
Mr. PASCRELL. Thank you.
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Chairman FERGUSON. And the good news is we are all against
it, and we are all here to help solve the problem. With that, the
gentleman from Utah, Mr. Moore, is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to all of
our witnesses today, thank you for being here to discuss this really
important opportunity to help protect our communities from fraud
and theft. And we want to focus on this. These are important as-
pects of this subcommittee to be able to address this. And if we
can, you know, talk about these issues, we can help avoid more
tough things like the Hayward family had to go through. So, again,
thank you for your testimonies.
Ms. Wechsler, the Social Security Administration is hoping to re-
cover the costs of the ECBSV within just three years by raising
rates on users. You know, there is always externalities to this type
of stuff and other intended consequences—unintended con-
sequences. For the users who do continue to use the system, how
will these costs be passed along to consumers?
Ms. WECHSLER. Congressman, thank you for the question. I
agree, as far as the cost of fraud is felt by everyone that uses finan-
cial products or services. And that is why we are here today, is to
try to solve that problem and make those costs not be as significant
as they are. And the best way we can do that is to extend the time-
frame for ECBSV to recover that—or for SSA to recover the costs,
and to make it as efficient and effective as possible and talk about,
you know, other ways that ECBSV could be used, and then—and,
you know, really bringing some predictability and sanity to the fee
structure.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Awesome. And continuing on with that, if
more entities were permitted to use ECBSV and the base of users
contributing user fees were broadened, this would alleviate some of
the financing issues that we are seeing with the program.
However, the question is whether it is appropriate to expand the
number of entities permitted to use ECBSV. Do you think there are
legitimate uses for entities in different industries—telecommuni-
cations, health care, you name it—to use this program?
Ms. WECHSLER. I am so glad you are raising this point, Con-
gressman. Yes, absolutely.
Our world is increasingly digital, and most sectors of the econ-
omy beyond financial services, they have a need to verify that a
consumer is providing accurate identity information and is not try-
ing to run a scam. So I think telecom providers is a great example
of potential users of this system. Utility companies, residential
landlords, others in the private sector. And maybe there is other
ways for state and Federal Government agencies to be using the
system. ECBSV put in a lot of resources for the system, and we
think there is really strong reasons for expanding the use.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Thank you.
Ms. Hayward, I have an 18–month-old at home too, and so I can
only imagine having—with all the other you have to deal with,
dealing with what you have done. It is an incredible story, and I
am glad you are working through it, and I appreciate you being
here today.
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Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in America.
Shockingly, one million kids are victims of identity theft every
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year. Following our difficult experience—your difficult experience
addressing the issue for your child, in your opinion, what is one
change that could be made to the Social Security Administration to
improve customer service for individuals, you know, trying to ad-
dress identity theft?
You have talked a little bit about having a point person and
things like that. And candidly, I ask the question because, like, this
is something that we need to make sure we are doing across the
board in our government agencies. And we talk a lot about the IRS,
our congressional offices are working closely with our constituents
to help them to liaise on this. We have been a big—you know, Re-
publicans and Democrats have been a supporter of increasing the
technology that they need to sort of get into the 21st century in a
lot of cases. Is there things like that that you are thinking of that
you wanted to add to your testimony about ways to improve?
Ms. HAYWARD. For us, the best way to improve would be to
have a new Social Security number for our daughter. The ability
to do that would really alleviate a lot of our time and effort in this
area. And from that, you know, the singular point of contact, some-
one who could knowledgeably provide us with the most up-to-date
information as things change over time, would be immensely
calming and helpful for a family in our situation.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Awesome. Thank you.
Mr. Brown, final question. You mentioned that Social Security
Administration’s OIG is working to find ways to defend against
identity theft empowered by AI. Can you expand on the threats
that are growing as a result of this?
Mr. BROWN. Congressman, as I mentioned briefly earlier, there
was an incident a few years ago that alarmed, I think, the agency
and the OIG of what appeared to be AI making automated phone
calls to the 800 number to redirect beneficiaries’ direct deposits.
Since then, we are seeing this technology evolve very rapidly, in-
cluding just in the last few months, as we have seen in the media.
We are playing catch-up here. I think a lot of organizations are.
So, as I said earlier, it is something that we need to really get
in front of as best we can.
Mr. MOORE of Utah. Awesome, thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman FERGUSON. Before I recognize the next member, the
ranking member has requested a point of personal privilege.
You are recognized.
Mr. LARSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I looked out into
the audience, I was pleased to see a dear person who I think, in
the minds of many of us up here, will get a direct shot to heaven
at some point. But we have been joined today by Elsie Pascrell, as
well, who is Bill Pascrell’s beloved wife, and someone we admire
and deeply respect.
Thank you for joining us, Elsie.
Chairman FERGUSON. Welcome, and thank you for being here.
Next, we will recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Steube.
Mr. STEUBE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The employer correction request notices, or the no-match letters,
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are letters that were sent from the Social Security Administration
to notify employers when their employees’ Social Security numbers
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65
did not match government records. It was established during the
Clinton Administration, and in the first few years approximately
1.7 million workers responded to no-match letters and had their
missing wages reinstated, which is a good thing.
No-match letters were ended by the Obama Administration one
week after the DACA program begun, which initially required ap-
plicants to disclose any Social Security numbers they would have
used, essentially admitting to a felony in writing. The Trump Ad-
ministration resumed the practice, sending out 1.6 million letters.
Though there was a pause during the early part of the pandemic,
these letters included a new attachment on instructions on how to
register for and use business services online to view Social Security
number mismatches.
The Biden Administration discontinued the practice again in
April of 2021. Not every no-match letter means that there is fraud.
When a woman changes her maiden name, for example, and
doesn’t notify the Social Security Administration is an example. If
someone is unaware of a mismatch and has no opportunity to cor-
rect the errors, they would receive no Social Security benefits on
account of the reported wages. Again, the Biden Administration
discontinued this practice, but appears to be relying on the busi-
ness services online.
The website says, ‘‘We have discontinued mailing EDCOR letters
effective April 2021. We will continue to modernize our systems to
make it easier for you to do business with us.’’
Mr. Brune, the website says ‘‘continue to modernize.’’ What gaps
are still in the business service online system, and how accurate is
this new system in detecting both fraud and accidental errors?
Mr. BRUNE. Congressman, thank you for your question. The ac-
curate collection of wage reports from employers is vital to our pro-
gram. We work closely with the employer community, as well as
payroll providers to continuously improve our electronic wage re-
porting.
Our free business services online system includes multiple tools
for employers to reduce instances of no-matches before, during, and
after they submit wage reports. So instead of a letter after the fact
in real time, we are communicating with them after they have reg-
istered and, you know, authenticated properly. We are sharing with
them as quickly as possible where they have inaccuracies that need
to be corrected.
Mr. STEUBE. Would you be able to provide the committee with
statistics on the effectiveness of the program?
Mr. BRUNE. We would be happy to get back to you for the
record, yes.
Mr. STEUBE. Okay. And what impact has this specifically had
on illegal immigration employment?
Mr. BRUNE. Well, wage reporting is one of the mechanisms, but
that is pretty much after the fact.
We also support the Department of Homeland Security on E–
Verify, and that allows a verification up front at the time of re-
quest for employment.
Mr. STEUBE. So, with the no-match letters—with the end of no-
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match letters, is the Social Security Administration being proactive
in contacting American citizens when there are no-matches? Or is
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the expectation that the citizens must be proactive in reaching out
to you?
Mr. BRUNE. Well, as I said, we work closely with the employer
and the payroll provider community, and they are responsible for
communicating with their employee when a no-match occurs, if
that is appropriate.
Mr. STEUBE. Okay. Is there any value in continuing the use of
the no-match letters in addition to the business services online, es-
pecially for senior citizens who don’t rely on technology?
Mr. BRUNE. We think the tools available in the business serv-
ices online, which are largely used by the business and employer
community, are effective because of their timeliness, how quickly
they provide a match or a no-match, and that allows more imme-
diate action to address the situation.
Mr. STEUBE. So, in the minute that I have left, how can we im-
prove the Social Security Administration’s collaboration with state
authorities to ensure that they have the necessary technology to
protect against data breaches?
Mr. BRUNE. We have many data exchanges with state authori-
ties, and continually work to provide verifications that support ac-
curacy of federally administered programs.
Mr. STEUBE. So what tools are lacking, in your opinion, from
SSA currently to protect American citizens?
Is there things that Congress can do to ensure the protection of
identity fraud and their Social Security number being fraudulently
used that we—that currently isn’t available?
Mr. BRUNE. Well, Congressman, as you noted in your ques-
tions—and Mr. Brown has indicated—technology evolves rapidly.
Responding to those evolutions in technology requires continued
focus on updating of our system and policies and procedures. Those
updates, you know, obviously, require funding to be implemented.
I think that our verifications are robust. They cover not only Fed-
eral use of the SSN, but we have extensive partnerships with state
and local entities as well as the business community that—and the
payroll provider community.
Mr. STEUBE. My time is expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. Next the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Sanchez.
You are now recognized for five minutes.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Larson.
Today’s hearing revolves around the Social Security Administra-
tion’s role in combating identity theft and what fixes can be imple-
mented to protect people from identity theft, which is a serious and
an important topic. And I don’t think anybody on this sub-
committee will disagree with how serious this issue is, or how seri-
ously we take our role as Members of Congress in finding a bipar-
tisan solution to combat identity theft. And the witnesses today
have provided some helpful suggestions on the steps that we could
potentially take in order to combat this.
But I will note for the record that not one witness has suggested
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that we cut funding to the Social Security Administration or to the
recipients who receive Social Security as a solution to combating
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identity theft. I just want to point that out, because we are at risk
of seeing massive cuts to the system that would be devastating.
I want to turn my attention a little bit to an issue that is very
high on the priority list of seniors in my district. I interact with
seniors quite frequently, as often as I can. And while identity theft
is an important issue, the issue that they most often raise for me
is improving the cost-of-living adjustment formula to better reflect
inflation so that they can actually make ends meet.
Sadly, many of my Republican colleagues don’t want to do that.
Instead, the Republican Study Committee’s most recent budget
plan would cut the annual cost of living adjustments by using the
Chained Consumer Price Index, which would result in a lower an-
nual cost of living adjustment and less money for seniors to live off
of.
Mr. Roach, what would be the impact of a lower cost of living ad-
justment on retirees who rely on their Social Security?
Mr. ROACH. Well, Social Security, as Ranking Member Larson
indicated, hasn’t had any improvement in 52 years, and the cost of
living adjustment over that period of time has fell way behind the
normal cost of living that it takes us to live. So, to slow that and
not increase it would be devastating on seniors and, again, seniors
and their families who are trying to take care of these seniors. It
would be a terrible thing to do. And again, it would be devastating
on all our seniors.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Thank you. And Mr. Roach, that same report
calls for the privatization of Social Security, diverting worker and
employee contributions directly into the stock market. How would
privatizing Social Security affect benefits for recipients?
Mr. ROACH. Another terrible idea. It would just enhance, you
know, investment bankers and those type of people. Today the
stock market is drastically down, and seniors would be hurting.
And you can’t depend on the stock market to feed your family and
to feed yourself. As a result, this organization, the Alliance for Re-
tired Americans, was born out of fighting privatization of Social Se-
curity. It is money that is paid into the system, and we expect to
get—we demand that we get the money back that we put into the
system, and we don’t want to put that money at risk.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. And if we were to follow the Republican Study
Group’s guide to privatize Social Security and the government were
to default, what would that do to the stock market and to retirees’
savings that they are depending on to live off of?
Mr. ROACH. Well, I think that—I think if you look at the data,
when I sat down here it was already—because some remarks were
made that we may not get there by a public official, and it is al-
ready cratering. So, it would be devastating.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Okay.
Mr. ROACH. The stock market, you know, was down. Unless it
got up, you know, a little while ago, it was—yesterday and today
have been pretty much an example of what would happen if we de-
fault. We would—we could just—you know, basically, if we de-
fault—let me get real—we could just put up the Chinese flag and,
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you know, be a third-world country. That is what would happen.
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. I thank you for your honest and frank opinion.
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We know that Social Security is a popular program because
Americans know that they can count on it. It is a guaranteed ben-
efit, which you have said, you know, they have earned after a life-
time of hard work and paying into the system. Along with many
of my colleagues on this committee, we believe that the program
needs to be strengthened for future generations. What are some
fixes that Congress could make to the program to address the—to
extend the life of the Social Security Trust Fund and increase bene-
fits for recipients?
Mr. ROACH. I think the CPI that we talked about could be more
advanced and up to date for the current cost of living. We could in-
crease benefits; we could increase benefits and we can make the
program solvent so people aren’t worried about it every day. We
could fix the many public sector employees that don’t have access
to Social Security. There is a whole number of things, and I believe
the 2100 addresses all those concerns. And I think that is what we
could do.
And if you lift the cap of the 160,000, which is the maximum
that people pay in, lift that and garner some of the wealthiest peo-
ple in the country, we would have sufficient funds for Social Secu-
rity to be self-sufficient. So basically, we are not asking for Con-
gress to appropriate funds that they have to borrow, we are saying
we want the funds we—if you lift the cap, use the numbers, it
will—the system will pay for itself.
Chairman FERGUSON. Mr. Roach, thank——
Ms. SÁNCHEZ. Excellent, thank you so much for your testimony,
and I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. Next, I recognize the gen-
tleman from Tennessee, Mr. Kustoff.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for calling today’s
hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing.
Ms. Wechsler, to you, for—as a means of prevention, would you
recommend to somebody that they have their credit reports frozen
in order to prevent Social Security theft?
Ms. WECHSLER. Well, you know, speaking personally, that is
something that we do in my household. And after hearing my fel-
low panelist’s story, I am going to take the process to do it for my
young children, as well.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Yes, I—so I want to follow up on that.
Ms. Hayward, after what happened to you, to your daughter, you
personally—you had you and your husband’s credit reports frozen,
right?
Ms. HAYWARD. At this time, we have been focusing our atten-
tion on our daughter and our children, and learning more about
what we need to do to protect ourselves.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Yes.
Ms. HAYWARD. As you can understand, it is—can be difficult
for an independent citizen to know exactly what the best practice
would be. And it has ramifications when opening a line of credit
or taking out a loan or buying a house. So at this time, you know,
we are still trying to figure out what the best course of action
would be, and are hoping that we can be provided with the best
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information to follow.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Fair enough. Thank you.
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Ms. Wechsler, back to you. Is there—there is a difference in the
process between freezing the credit of an adult versus a minor
child, isn’t there?
Ms. WECHSLER. That is my understanding, yes.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Okay. And it is more complicated, maybe sub-
stantially more complicated, to freeze the credit of a minor child
versus an adult.
Ms. WECHSLER. Right. I can tell you, just because I have done
a little research on what that looks like. Yes, there is a lot of docu-
ments we have to provide, as the parents of the children.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Good, thank you.
If I can, Mr. Brown, as it relates to you and to OIG, can you talk
about the scammers who target, I guess, individuals versus groups?
Because there are both, right? There are some that are individ-
uals, there are some that are professional groups.
Mr. BROWN. The scammers are, yes, individuals or groups.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Okay. Can you talk about the different types of
groups that conduct the scamming?
Mr. BROWN. I think I can refer to—drawing on that example
from a few years ago. The artificial intelligence that was likely
backed up by unknown individuals, not likely one individual. And
it was difficult to track the perpetrators down because this is all
being done electronically through voice-over Internet telephone sys-
tems, calls that are being originated from outside the United
States.
So, my point here is it is very difficult to identify the perpetra-
tors, whether they are individuals or groups.
Mr. KUSTOFF. And the ones that are coming from outside the
U.S., do you know or do you have an opinion where they are com-
ing from?
Mr. BROWN. I will have to get back to you on that. I think our
investigative work has tracked some of that down, but I don’t have
the information readily available.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you. Do you coordinate with different law
enforcement agencies?
Mr. BROWN. We do.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Primarily the FBI?
Mr. BROWN. Correct.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Can you think of any prosecutions in the last
five years of these scammers?
Mr. BROWN. Unfortunately, my background is in the Office of
Audit. The investigative side is not sort of in my portfolio. So, I
would be happy to get some more information for you for the
record.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Yes, I would appreciate that, if you could, if you
could let me know if there have been any prosecutions, because it
would seem like—I am a former Federal prosecutor, former U.S. at-
torney—that, you know, when you have one or X number of suc-
cessful prosecutions, that it sends a strong deterrence effect to
those who think about trying to perpetrate the same or similar
crime.
Now, a lot of times they will adapt, and sometimes after the ex-
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pansion of time they seem to go away. But the more those inves-
tigations and the more those prosecutions and the notoriety that
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they receive, that—there is no doubt that there is a deterrence ef-
fect. So, if you could follow back up with me, I would appreciate
it.
Mr. BROWN. Yes, sir.
Mr. KUSTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, as my time is expir-
ing, I yield back my 10 seconds.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Before we go to the next member, the ranking member and I
have both commented several times on the artificial intelligence
piece. And Mr. Brown or Mr. Brune—Mr. Brown, specifically—you
keep going back to the one incident that you have been made
aware of, which was a program that was calling in. Are you all
doing anything right now to kind of survey where you may be in
this process?
I mean, you are aware of one thing, but how much—is there a
way to track penetration from AI into the system? I think we are
just both kind of, you know, concerned about this. So, you know,
it is—are you all doing anything to monitor that, or is it hard to
do because you don’t know what it is yet?
Mr. BROWN. Hard to do because we don’t know what it is yet.
Also, hard to track where it is coming from.
So, we are looking at data to try to decipher where this—these
potentially fraudulent calls are coming from. But fraudsters have
found ways to spoof legitimate phone numbers, redirect calls, so it
looks like they are coming from within the United States when
they are not. So, they are always, you know, sort of one step ahead
of us, and we are trying to catch up here.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay, thank you. Next, a gentleman
from Arizona is recognized for five minutes.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to my—I
will call him my friend, Ranking Member, he and I both have a fix-
ation on stability and survival of Social Security, though I think we
see the actual financing mechanisms very different.
We did some of the math last night on the floor and showed that
if you were to stabilize U.S. sovereign debt at 95 to 97 percent—
because the real problem is actually more in the Medicare—I need
a 24 percent payroll tax tomorrow and a 20 percent VAT tax tomor-
row to stabilize U.S. sovereign debt to 97 percent of debt to GDP.
That is the CBO math. And so, you can go—if you want to argue,
go argue with CBO.
Mr. Chairman, back——
Mr. LARSON. Mr. Chairman——
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. My time—back about two years ago, we ac-
tually had a hearing in this room, maybe even three or four years
ago—actually, I think you may have been in the chair—and there
was part—one of the discussions was is there a way to actually sort
of have a revolution on how we both have a—more—as we are
using a Social Security number or a national ID number func-
tioning—is what it becomes—for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Secu-
rity, so many other items, to have a rotating encryption on it.
We actually, I think, at that time had a technology expert come
speak to us saying, okay, just like, you know, here is the number,
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but underneath it is always a token that is rotating, or some sort
of ability to—like this. Because my fear is, if I am reading the ma-
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71
terials or even—and I am sorry, I ran back to the office to see if
I could find the binder. I couldn’t find it from a couple of years ago
that had some of the material in it.
Has there been any type of research project, whether it be the
Social Security level, you know, the IG, someone saying as tech-
nology gets better, as the AI gets better, as the data mining gets
better, the fraudsters are going to get better. Is there a way we
could build a much more bulletproof token that is also that tax ID?
And you seem to have the most expertise on this. I mean, what
would you do?
Ms. WECHSLER. I appreciate the question, Congressman. I am
not a technology expert, but I work with them, and we are happy
to have these discussions.
I do agree, as far as the strong reliance that our country has on
Social Security numbers, and that makes it such an attractive tar-
get for fraudsters. And that is, you know, why we have so much
focus on the ECBSV program. But we are happy to have more dis-
cussions about that.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. But within that, I think, actually, we had
had some testimony in the back that—the amount of fraud that is
in our Medicare system, even our Medicaid systems, often using—
walking into an emergency room and using someone else’s Social
Security number and these things. So, this is a much greater scale
than I fear we completely have our heads around. And maybe the
goal here should be not only identifying the problem, because we
seem to do this every couple of years, but are we ready to bring
in some true experts?
Is there a way—you know, if I can carry around my bank ac-
counts on this thing, and they are substantially bulletproof, is
there a way we could provide that type of protection to the Amer-
ican taxpayers?
And just everyone, because, you know, we all have to live with
this number.
And the other thing, how old is the little girl?
Ms. HAYWARD. Our daughter is nine months old.
Mr. SCHWEIKERT. So cute. The insane thing, I have a 10-
month-old little boy we just adopted. And so, you are—hearing your
story, and I am all of a sudden going, oh, God, we need to check.
So, you see what you caused?
But to everyone on the panel—and then I will yield back, Mr.
Chairman—if you come across any literature, a discussion of what
we could do to actually fix this, you know, I would love us to actu-
ally be working on a fix instead of planning for next year’s hearing
again to do the same thing over.
So with that, I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you. The gentleman from New
York, Mr. Higgins, is recognized.
Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, it has long been known and long ignored that Social
Security has a customer service problem. You know, benefits are
not cut, but when the administration is cut, it makes services for
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our individual constituents, every congressional district, very, very
difficult.
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Next Friday $25 billion in Social Security benefits are scheduled
to be paid out but will not if the nation defaults on its debt.
You know, if there is a problem with fraud and abuse, whether
it is an internal source or an external force, you know, the logical
extension is that resources, that money is needed to fix that. Presi-
dent Biden proposed budget increases to improve Social Security
services, including cutting fraud and theft by nearly $2 billion for
a total of $15 billion; 224 million was to protect the program’s in-
tegrity.
Part of the program’s integrity is to ensure that it fulfills its mis-
sion in a way that is effective and efficient, because every single
week $25 billion in Social Security benefits are paid out. That is
$100 billion every single month. These are people that primarily
depend on those resources to survive.
Additionally, they are net contributors to the American economy.
These people do not save their Social Security payments. They
spent a whole life contributing to it so that they could experience
a life of dignity.
You know, there is a lot of talk about, you know, debt and deficit,
and both parties are responsible, and that is true. What is not
talked about as much is that American debt in the form of Treas-
ury bonds, bills, and securities is the greatest, safest investment in
the world. When there is a global recession or a national recession,
it is called a flight to safety. That is what world markets buy be-
cause 60 percent of the world’s economy is dependent on the Amer-
ican dollar. The full faith and credit of the United States shall
never be questioned. That is the gold standard by which people in-
vest in American debt.
Yes, the debt is a problem, but the way that you deal with that
is through economic growth. And anybody that questions whether
or not growth can do that, look back to the 1990s, 1992 to the year
2000. Sustained economic growth of four percent every single year
for eight years. We did not have budgetary deficits. We had budg-
etary surpluses of $300 billion. We paid $400 billion down on the
national debt. That kind of growth was only made possible by the
investment that this Congress made in the American people and
the growth of the American economy. And somebody says, well, you
have four percent growth, you have an inflation problem. No, you
didn’t. Inflation was at 2.25 percent for that 8 years.
You know, you can’t continue to hold the American people hos-
tage because of a debt situation that you helped create. Seventy
percent of American debt is owed to Americans. That is what the
Chinese would love. They would love for us to default on our debt.
Do you want to know why? Because they want to be the world’s
lead currency in the end.
The other issue which I still don’t understand, but our friends on
the other side in the House Ways and Means Committee prioritize
who would get paid if we defaulted on our debt, and China was
first. Not the American people, not the Social Security program, not
the Medicare program.
So, I just simply want to say—and I have heard very clearly your
your testimony, it has been very valuable to me in terms of learn-
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ing a little bit more about this extraordinary program that, by the
way, lifted 50 percent of American seniors out of poverty when it
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was enacted in 1935. We have a demographics problem. People are
living longer. We should be celebrating that. And that is why John
Larson’s Social Security 2100 Act is so visionary, is so valuable, not
only to the American people, but to the American spirit.
I see my time is expired. I will yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you, Mr. Higgins. And we all
agree that raising the debt ceiling is something that should be
done. We cannot default on the debt. And House Republicans have
been the only ones in Washington, D.C. to vote to raise the debt
limit so far in this discussion.
With that, I will yield to my colleague from Iowa, Mr. Feenstra.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Thank you, Chairman Ferguson. And I also
want to thank Ranking Member Larson. Thank you for having this
hearing, and it is really important and, you know, collaboratively,
all right, I don’t care about politics. I care about solutions, how we
can work together.
You came here, each one of you came here to give testimony. You
came here to discuss this critical issue that we have in front of us.
And we need to find a solution together, and I thank you for that.
In Iowa our state has already received more official complaints
of identity theft this year than all of 2022, and we are not even 6
months into the year yet. So this is a real concern. And so, Ms.
Wechsler, I am just curious. Do you have any idea why we are see-
ing such an onslaught of identity theft starting already this year,
compared to years past?
And by the way, is this nationally or is it more Midwest-driven?
Ms. WECHSLER. Thank you for the question, and I am sympa-
thetic that so many of your constituents are already victims of
identity theft this year. We are seeing that nationally in, you know,
identity theft, but also specifically synthetic identity theft and
fraud. It is the fastest-growing type of financial crime in the U.S.,
and it is the—and synthetic identity fraud is the largest type of
identity theft.
And, you know, it is not just in the credit industry, but it is in
other sectors of—you know, with government benefits and unem-
ployment benefits. And we have heard from some of my fellow pan-
elists on that. And that is why, you know, again, it is—ECBSV is
such a critical tool for combating synthetic identity fraud. And we
have to maximize the use and the effectiveness of this system.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes, so I agree. Thank you for those comments.
I want to extrapolate on that just a little bit.
So, with AI, what is happening in AI, do you think—I mean, I
get worried when you see things doubling so quickly. Do you think
AI is the biggest producer of what is happening, you know,
phishing attacks and all this other stuff?
I mean, is this something that oh, wow, I mean, we have got
problems ahead of us? What is your thoughts?
Ms. WECHSLER. I know data breaches are more and more com-
mon.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes.
Ms. WECHSLER. And that is certainly an opportunity for Social
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Security numbers to become vulnerable and then be taken over.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes.
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Ms. WECHSLER. So, is there other technology that is making
that possible? That is very likely.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes, yes. So, I sat on the Science, Space, and
Technology Committee last year, and I was the ranking member of
the Research and Technology Committee. We talked a lot about ar-
tificial intelligence and, you know, obviously, it is a safety issue.
Are you working with other agencies—I am just thinking out
loud here—like NIST, NSF, DoE, or is there any way that you guys
can work collaboratively?
I mean, it just seems like—and I am hoping it is not the case
that we are all in little silos trying to do our little—our work. I
mean, is there ways that we can work together with some of these
that we are all trying to somewhat combat this situation?
Any thoughts there, Ms. Wechsler or anybody else?
Ms. WECHSLER. We are certainly open to collaboration across
the public and private sector. That is certainly what we are trying
to achieve with ECBSV. And on a larger scale, absolutely.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes. And anyone else that you see, hey, I have
done—we are doing X, Y, and Z with this different organization?
Mr. BRUNE. Congressman, at the Social Security Administration
we are very collaborative with our Federal partners and with the
technology community who not only provisions technology to the
government, but to—you know, to the nation.
In recent, you know, discussions we have coordinated with mul-
tiple executive branch agencies to both learn more about the, you
know, emerging technologies and identify positive use cases that
help the government mission.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Awesome, glad to hear that. So, we are Con-
gress. I am asking you questions I want to ask you, what can we
do? All right? What do you see that Congress can do, Mr. Brune
and Ms. Wechsler, all right? If you could say, hey, if you guys could
do this, if you men and women could do X, what would that be?
Mr. BRUNE. Well, Congressman, I would say that as technology
advances and as threats, as you have identified, change, adequate,
sustained funding is an important measure to continue to advance
the government’s defenses.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Yes, thank you.
Ms. Wechsler——
Ms. WECHSLER. Just the important role you have played in
making sure ECBSV was created to begin with, and then ensuring
its efficiency and effectiveness.
Mr. FEENSTRA. Perfect. Thank you so much for your testimony,
and I yield back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you.
Our dear friend and colleague from Michigan, glad to have you
back, sir, and healthy. You are now recognized for five minutes.
Mr. KILDEE. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. It is good to
be back, I will say, and I have mentioned this a couple of times,
I am not 100 percent yet. It still hurts for me to talk, which makes
this a completely shared experience. [Laughter.]
Mr. KILDEE. I do want to thank the witnesses for being here,
and I do agree with my colleagues, and I am glad this conversation
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is taking place. The notion that Americans, like Ms. Hayward and
others, have to deal with the frightening reality of identity theft is
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75
something that we have to take very seriously, and we have to de-
ploy whatever capacity, whatever technology, whatever policies we
can to try to address that. And I am pleased to hear that there are
some ideas that we might need to invest in. We need to hold these
bad actors accountable.
But we do also have to recognize that everything we do here has
some impact on the capacity of the agency to address that. So, I
am concerned, as some of my colleagues have expressed, that any
steps that we might take that would potentially limit the resources
available to the Social Security Administration or any other body
of government could have the exact opposite effect of what we are
trying to address during this hearing.
According to the acting Social Security commissioner, some of the
cuts that could be proposed, for example, in the so-called Limit
Save and Grow Act—at least this is according to the acting com-
missioner—could force the agency to close field offices and lay off,
quite literally, thousands of people who go to work every day trying
to make the agency’s mission more achievable.
You know, I think about this—about, you know, in terms of how
it affects the people I represent. Back home in Michigan, two mil-
lion seniors rely on Social Security. And as Mr. Larson, who has
supplied us regularly with data, my particular district is one that
has a fairly high number of Social Security recipients, both seniors
but also other beneficiaries of Social Security. And I am very con-
cerned that we not talk about steps to address identity fraud and
at the same time weaken the ability of the agency itself or the Ad-
ministration to address this.
So if I could start with Mr. Roach, ask if you might just comment
on how the proposed—and I know this is not something that is nec-
essarily shared by all members on the other side of the aisle, but
a majority of our Republican colleagues are a member of the Re-
publican Study Committee that put forward these proposals—how
this will impact the loss, for example, of field offices, the loss of em-
ployees who go to work every day trying to make the Social Secu-
rity Administration more responsive to those Americans who have
paid in?
What will be the impact on our ability not just to deal with this
issue of identity fraud, but of all the challenges that come with
running a large organization that provides benefits that, for many
of the people who are the beneficiaries, is their principal, if not
their sole source of income? Mr. Roach, could you just comment on
that?
Mr. ROACH. Yes. Well, I know firsthand I had a problem with
Social Security. Not—you know, I needed assistance. They had
closed my office in Arlington, Virginia. I would have to travel many
miles away. The phones weren’t being answered in a timely fash-
ion. They would call you back. It would be devastating. Many sen-
iors are confined. They have to communicate and try to get infor-
mation on various issues that come through. And every year there
is a different issue.
So it would be a devastating thing to continue to close—I mean,
to continue to do what is already happening. And that, you know,
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expand those offices and expand the ability to communicate directly
with Social Security. As you said, you know, communicating is very
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76
tough. And we cut staff. Nobody is answering the phone. And so,
it would be—worsen—exacerbating a bad situation.
Mr. KILDEE. Well, I appreciate that. And I would just add to
that by saying that I also think we ought to be careful. And I know,
again, this often comes up where some would criticize the people
who work in the Social Security Administration or any other agen-
cy of government as being bureaucrats and subject to all sorts of,
I think, really unfair characterization.
These are people—these are Americans who go to work every day
to serve their fellow American citizens. We ought to hold them up.
We ought to support them, and especially when we are trying to
deal with this really significant threat of identity fraud. Let’s not
on one hand say that we want to stop that, and on the other hand
make it more difficult for the people who go to work every day try-
ing to address these problems, to get their work done.
With that, again, Mr. Chairman, thanks for holding this hearing.
I really appreciate it very much, and I appreciate your nice com-
ments at the outset. Thank you.
Chairman FERGUSON. And you will appreciate the fact that I
agree that that was not entirely too painful for either of us.
So, with that, the gentleman from Ohio, Dr. Wenstrup, is recog-
nized for five minutes.
Mr. WENSTRUP. Well, I do want to welcome my friend back.
I am glad you are doing well.
And I want to thank you, Chairman Ferguson, Ranking Member
Larson, for having this committee and for all of you being here
today.
The fraud is a great concern of mine. Child identity theft is a se-
rious problem in our country. I am concerned that maybe the Social
Security Administration isn’t doing enough to protect our children
and grandchildren from having their identity stolen. That is one
thing.
But maybe there is more we can do to protect these children, and
that is that is where I want to go. Children’s identities are valuable
to criminals. It is a bonanza for them when they get it. They can
go undiscovered for years, until that child is old enough to work,
drive, or try to establish credit, and then it comes forward. And
when children’s Social Security numbers fall in the hands of the
wrong person, it sets a stage for a future of financial hardships and
problems before a child is even old enough to walk.
I do want to talk about the Social Security Child Protection Act.
You know, as made clear by Ms. Hayward’s testimony, the Social
Security Administration’s current policies make it extremely dif-
ficult for families who are trying to obtain a new Social Security
number after being a victim of a comprised [sic] Social Security
number.
I can tell you firsthand, when you adopt not immediately at
birth, but say maybe months later, the advice you are given as par-
ents of that child, new parents to that child, is ‘‘Get a new Social
Security number,’’ because of this very reason. Fortunately, we
were given that advice and did just that.
It is just shocking to hear that such a vital piece of a child’s iden-
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tity was compromised before he—before she was only one month
old. And fortunately, the story is not unique, apparently, and that
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77
is why we were given the warning. So, I want to make sure that
people can address this and have the ability to protect their chil-
dren from having their identity stolen, and deserve the opportunity
to open bank accounts, et cetera.
So that is why last Congress I worked with my colleague, Rep-
resentative Blumenauer, to introduce the Social Security Child Pro-
tection Act. This common-sense bill would allow Social Security Ad-
ministration to issue a new Social Security number to children
aged 14 and under if their Social Security number has been com-
promised by theft of their Social Security number. So, we are plan-
ning on reintroducing this act this week, and I invite all the mem-
bers here to join in this effort to protect our children and assist
their families when their lives have been upended by child identity
theft.
The Social Security Administration has a responsibility to pro-
vide protection for our children, to prevent what happened to Ms.
Hayward and her family from ever happening again. I think we
can make a big dent in that if we work together on this.
Ms. Hayward, can you discuss how things may have been dif-
ferent for you and your family if the Social Security Administration
would have had the ability to issue your daughter a new Social Se-
curity number when you realized it had been compromised?
Ms. HAYWARD. Thank you. Yes. You know, from my under-
standing, from what I have been told is that we have to wait until
there has been some harm incurred. We have to have substantial
proof of that harm, which can take months, years, maybe even dec-
ades to even learn about.
And so if we had been able to have a new Social Security number
given to us, even though we didn’t have proof of harm yet, thank
goodness, then it would save us and buy us more time to do what
we needed to do—apply for a passport, you know, open a 529, that
sort of thing—and give us a peace of mind that at least she is
working with a clean slate.
Mr. WENSTRUP. Thank you very much.
I yield back, and I hope we can get this act passed. It is bipar-
tisan. Let’s work on that and help others out. Thank you, I yield
back.
Chairman FERGUSON. Okay. Thank you for reintroducing that.
I look forward to working with you to get that across the finish
line.
Next, the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. Davis, you are now recognized for five minutes, sir.
Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank you for
giving me the opportunity to waive onto this hearing. I am not a
member of the Social Security Subcommittee, but I have such a
vital interest, and Social Security is so important to the district
that I represent that I wanted to make sure that I heard what I
could hear, and that I contributed whatever it is that I could con-
tribute.
I am very interested in fraud and in Social Security. But I am
really more interested in Social Security than I am in fraud. Both
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are very important, and we want to eliminate as much of it as we
possibly can, not only in terms of individuals attempting to what
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78
we call in the community where I live ‘‘pimping the system,’’ and
we certainly don’t want to see the Social Security system pimped.
But we also want to be careful that we don’t eliminate and leave
out—I recall how Social Security sort of came into being, and peo-
ple who were left out. And I am sure that the designers and pro-
moters did not intend, but I grew up in rural America, and many
of the people that I grew up with were farmers, they were share-
croppers. And so, they went many years without paying into Social
Security. They were not allowed to pay in.
Therefore, as they reached retirement age, or even as they
reached the age where they could contribute—and my father was
one of those individuals, so I know exactly when they were able to
contribute, and I also know exactly what his Social Security check
was after he retired. He lived with me, and he was 92 years old.
His check was $536 a month, and he was a very proud indi-
vidual. And often times, if we went to dinner or whatever, he would
attempt to pay. He said, ‘‘Oh, let me pay for this.’ ’’ He would reach
up, and pull out his money and he would always say to my wife,
‘‘Vera, I am paying for your dinner. Now, your husband can, you
know, do the best he could.’’ [Laughter.]
Mr. DAVIS. But I thought if he only had $536—fortunately, he
was okay, he had children that he could live with and all of that,
and so he didn’t have to worry. So, I think we have to be very care-
ful.
And I am hearing, you know, people wanting to raise, raise, and
raise the retirement age. Well, I think we need to be very careful
about that, as well. I think one of the reasons that Social Security
has been so popular is that people know that they can depend on
it. Social Security benefits for many people, of course, is about
$20,000 a year. Many of the individuals in my districts about half
of that. It is about $20,000. It is about $10,000 for them, and that
is what many of them get.
So, I want to make sure that we protect Social Security as much
as we can. And I hear this thought, this idea about privatization
and privatizing. Well, you know, I think, to me, that is kind of like
a gamble. And you never know what the outcome is going to be.
So, Mr. Roach, let me ask you. The idea of privatizing Social Se-
curity, how do your members—how do you react to that?
Mr. ROACH. You know, our members will not be satisfied with
that. My organization, the Alliance of Retired Americans, was born
out of the initial talks to privatize Social Security and put our
money at risk. We put the money in and trust to the government
Social Security. And we depend on that money coming out. And to
put it at risk in stock markets and other financial institution in-
struments would be devastating mentally and physically to our
members and Social Security recipients as a whole.
Mr. DAVIS. And the idea of more of a guarantee because we
have been fortunate. We have never missed a payment yet, and
people have been able to reap the benefits and have the security
of—just about knowing, and they wait for the first of the month.
Mr. ROACH. Absolutely. The guarantee of the Federal Govern-
ment means it is very comforting to all of our Social Security re-
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cipients, the fact that they are not looking at—they have to look
at the stock market go up and down.
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And, you know, people who are—have money outside of Social
Security, they are more vulnerable to fraud and theft because the
numbers are all over the place. And it is very difficult to keep track
of these things. We are doing some work in that arena. But no, pri-
vatization and lack of a guarantee would be devastating to Social
Security recipients and potential future Social——
Chairman FERGUSON. Thank you for your comments, Mr.
Roach. The gentleman’s time has expired.
I would like to thank each of our witnesses for coming today.
Your testimony has been helpful. It has caused us to want to ex-
plore this area even more, and really be a partner in helping solve
this very serious problem for our fellow Americans.
Please be advised that the members have two weeks to submit
written questions to be answered later in writing. Those questions
and your answers will be made part of the formal hearing record.
With that, this subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:03 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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File and source
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