Representatives Angie Craig and Peter Meijer Introduce Legislation to Prevent Wasteful and Improper Payments to Dead People

WASHINGTON, DC —Today, U.S. Representatives Angie Craig (D-MN) and Peter Meijer (R-MI) introduced bipartisan legislation to prevent wasteful and improper payments to deceased Americans by ordering the Social Security Administration (SSA) to rapidly and permanently share its death data with the federal government's "Do Not Pay" system. The SSA maintains detailed death records to prevent wasteful payments to deceased Americans who were previously enrolled as Social Security beneficiaries. However, the SSA has not historically shared that data across the federal government – which has resulted in tens of billions of dollars in improper payments annually.

In fiscal year 2019, the Government Accountability Office estimated that improper payments throughout the federal government totaled an estimated $175 billion. Since 2003, when agencies were first directed to begin reporting improper payments, cumulative improper payment estimates across government have totaled over $1.5 trillion.

"Every year, the federal government distributes billions of dollars in unnecessary and improper payments to Americans who have long since passed away – a staggering oversight that must be addressed," said Representative Craig. "Working families in Minnesota deserve to know that their hard-earned tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently in Washington – not squandered to careless and wasteful mismanagement. I'm proud to introduce this legislation which would help to rapidly resolve this senseless oversight and save the American people tens of billions of dollars."

"Americans deserve accountability from their government agencies," said Representative Meijer. "Improper payments from the IRS result in a cost to the taxpayer and erode the confidence we have in our federal programs. The GAO recommendations to help reduce improper payments are commonsense and would ensure responsible operations from the IRS. American taxpayers expect better from our federal agencies, and this bill takes a necessary step to reduce waste."

In 2020, the Government Accountability Office recommended that Congress "provide the Department of the Treasury with access to the Social Security Administration's full set of death records, and to require that the Department of the Treasury consistently use it" to prevent improper payments – which cost the federal government an estimated $175 billion in fiscal year 2019. In 2020, Congress took a significant step toward addressing this oversight by passing legislation requiring the SSA to share its data. However, the bill's enforcement was delayed until December 27, 2023 – and only mandated data sharing for a 3-year period. Craig's legislation seeks to strengthen that historic reform by ordering SSA to permanently share its full death data across the federal government before the end of 2022.

Saving taxpayer dollars by preventing improper payments has been a top priority for Craig since entering Congress. In 2020, President Trump signed into law Craig's Payment Integrity Information Act, which required agencies to undertake additional efforts and develop plans to prevent improper payments before they happen.

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