A new report found that over 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison. Money well spent!
The payments were part of last year's massive economic recovery package, meant to increase consumer spending and stimulate the economy. But how can you do that when $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead? Worse, little more than half of those payments were returned. An additional $4.3 million went to more than 17,000 prison inmates. Most of the inmates were eligible to get the payments because they were newly incarcerated and had been receiving Social Security before they were locked up.
The $250 payments were sent to about 52 million people who receive either Social Security or Supplemental Security Income, at a cost of about $13 billion, and for the most part were a success...aside for this very public error. A Social Security spokesman said, "Inaccurate payments are unacceptable. Social Security's Recovery Act payments were 99.8% accurate and we quickly collected the majority of the inaccurate payments. Each year we make payments to a small number of deceased recipients usually because we have not yet received reports of their deaths."
The inspector general for the Social Security Administration has been performing an audit to make sure no checks went to ineligible recipients (and they were!). This report was dated September 24, and noted that people were eligible for payments if they were getting benefits during any one of the three months before the law was passed in February 2009. The report suggested that if similar payments are authorized in the future, prison inmates should be ineligible and the government should be able to recover payments made to dead people. Naturally, the SSA agreed with the recommendations.
The payments were part of last year's massive economic recovery package, meant to increase consumer spending and stimulate the economy. But how can you do that when $18 million went to nearly 72,000 people who were dead? Worse, little more than half of those payments were returned. An additional $4.3 million went to more than 17,000 prison inmates. Most of the inmates were eligible to get the payments because they were newly incarcerated and had been receiving Social Security before they were locked up.
The $250 payments were sent to about 52 million people who receive either Social Security or Supplemental Security Income, at a cost of about $13 billion, and for the most part were a success...aside for this very public error. A Social Security spokesman said, "Inaccurate payments are unacceptable. Social Security's Recovery Act payments were 99.8% accurate and we quickly collected the majority of the inaccurate payments. Each year we make payments to a small number of deceased recipients usually because we have not yet received reports of their deaths."
The inspector general for the Social Security Administration has been performing an audit to make sure no checks went to ineligible recipients (and they were!). This report was dated September 24, and noted that people were eligible for payments if they were getting benefits during any one of the three months before the law was passed in February 2009. The report suggested that if similar payments are authorized in the future, prison inmates should be ineligible and the government should be able to recover payments made to dead people. Naturally, the SSA agreed with the recommendations.
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