Over a 10-year period, the Social Security Administration (SSA) paid out $1 billion in benefits to individuals with no social security number, according to an Inspector General's audit.
The agency's IG found 22,426 representative payees — a proxy for folks who can't manage the benefits themselves — who did not have a social security number.
"Furthermore, unless it takes corrective action, we estimate SSA will pay about $182.5 million in benefits, annually, to representative payees who do not have a SSN or paper application supporting their selection," the inspector general wrote.
On top of that, the IG audit found that SSA paid out another $853 million to terminated representative payees.
The SSA defended its practice of paying out to representative payees without a social security number.
"The (Social Security) Act permits us to appoint, in certain circumstances, an undocumented alien, or applicant who resides outside the United States without a Social Security number (SSN) to serve as payee," the agency told The Washington Free Beacon.
"Specifically, the Act states we should verify a person's SSN (or employer identification number) in our investigation of the payee applicant. However, the Act does not state that the applicant must have a SSN to serve as a payee," the agency said.
The SSA told the Free Beacon that it switched to a new representative payee software last year and that transferring of information "may have resulted in applications showing as terminated or not selected," the agency said.
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