The Social Security Administration was hit Wednesday by the investigative arm of Congress for failing to implement 25 of 28 of its recommendations from 2011 to 2017.
“Effective implementations of these action ... could yield significant benefits,” the General Accountability Office told SSA in a report.
Emphasizing the enormity of Social Security, GAO noted the agency accounts for almost a quarter of federal spending at close to $1 trillion per year.
Among the ignored GAO suggestions were activities that could have reduced overlapping payments in the agency’s retirement and disability programs, and steps to prevent overpayments to beneficiaries of the Disability Insurance program and improper waivers of beneficiaries’ overpayment debt, according to the report.
GAO claimed Social Security could recover tens of millions of dollars annually in Disability Insurance overpayments by increasing withholding rates of individuals’ ongoing monthly DI benefit payments.
However, SSA claimed the GAO's recommendation would entail significant information-technology and training costs and result in relatively little debt being collected.