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GAO findings on sharing costs for Social Security’s Death Data - U.S. GAO
Only for the most persnickety among us, this report from the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) explains that the Social Security Administration pays the various States for their “death data” (about $26 million in 2025), which is then used by Social Security to stop paying benefits to deceased persons. That is obviously a necessity and, ultimately, money well spent by the SSA to avoid making improper Social Security benefit payments.
Recently, however, the U.S. Department of Treasury has piggybacked on the SSA’s Death Data files for use in Treasury’s “Do Not Pay” operations, resulting in prevention or recovery of about $113 million in improper Treasury payments. Another good example of proper use of the government’s assets. So what is the problem?
Well, according to the GAO, the SSA bears the full cost of getting the fundamental death data from the States. And since the Department of Treasury now benefits from those data, Treasury should also share in the cost of obtaining it from the States. Thus, the GAO has recommended several operational changes at SSA to accomplish having Treasury pay a proportion share of the costs to obtain the death data from the states. Read the GAO’s report and recommendations in this article.
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