House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) and ranking member John Larson (D-CT) on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen the oversight of the Social Security Administration’s payee representative program, which handles the payments of more than 8 million beneficiaries who are too young, disabled or elderly to manage their benefits themselves.

The "Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2017 (H.R. 4547)” bill follows on the heels of reports of abuses payee representatives perpetrate on beneficiaries and the SSA. It’s designed to strengthen oversight and beneficiary protections, while improving payee selection and quality.

“The Social Security Administration has a big responsibility to make sure Americans who need help managing their benefits get it,” Johnson said today. “But the program doesn’t always work the way it should. Too often, we hear stories about representative payees who take advantage of those they are supposed to help.”

Since 1938, the SSA representative payee program has been providing representatives to help beneficiaries manage their benefits if they are unable to do so themselves because they are children or have a condition that prevents them from processing and managing their SSA payments.

The bill responds to reports from nonpartisan government watchdogs and stakeholders who raised serious concerns about how the SSA administers the program, the Social Security Subcommittee said in a statement.

The subcommittee held two hearings to examine the challenges facing the agency and identify solutions to help ensure representative payees are serving the best interests of Social Security beneficiaries. This legislation is designed to “strengthen the representative payee program so that it better protects beneficiaries and reduces burdensome government paperwork that rarely provides any real value for families.

"Too many Americans are counting on the Social Security Administration to get this right,” Johnson said.

The “Strengthening Protections for Social Security Beneficiaries Act of 2017” includes safeguards for beneficiaries designed to:

• Strengthen oversight by increasing the number of performance reviews of payees, requiring additional types of reviews and improving the effectiveness of the reviews by the requiring the Protection and Advocacy system of each state to conduct the reviews, on behalf of the Social Security Administration (SSA).

• Reduce the burden on families by eliminating the requirement to file an annual payee accounting form for parents who live with their children and for spouses.

• Enhance personal control by allowing beneficiaries to designate their preferred payee in advance of actually needing one; and ensures improved selection of payees by requiring the SSA to assess the appropriateness of the preference list used to select payees.

• Improve beneficiary protections by increasing information sharing between the SSA and child welfare agencies, and by directing the SSA to study how better to coordinate with Adult Protective Services agencies and with state guardianship courts.

• Limit overpayment liability for children in the child welfare system.

• Ensure that no beneficiary has a barred payee by codifying the ban on individuals with certain criminal convictions from serving as payees and prohibiting individuals who have payees from serving as payees for others.

“Today, we are proud to introduce this bill that will better safeguard those most in need of protection, including nearly 4 million children, by strengthening the selection and monitoring of payees, while reducing administrative burdens on families caring for loved ones.” said Larson, who is co-sponsoring the bill.