The Social Security Administration said Friday that an internal audit has uncovered $11.5 million in payments to dead beneficiaries, and estimated that the total would be nearly triple that amount when its investigation is completed.
The agency has examined records in only 4 percent of the 1,400 cases it has opened for investigation, said Danny Johnson, a spokesman for Social Security’s Office of the Inspector General. It estimates that $31 million nationwide had been paid to dead beneficiaries as of the end of last year.
One deceased beneficiary received payments for almost 13 years, the audit found.
Another case involved a Jacksonville beneficiary who received $130,053.20 after dying.
More than half of the $11.5 million already identified is “either scheduled for recovery or already has been recovered,” and $18.2 million in improper payments were stopped before being sent out, Johnson said.
But he was reluctant to estimate the total amount that could be recovered.
“There’s no way [the auditors] can put a price tag on that,” he said, “because it’s an ongoing audit.”
In a statement Friday night, the agency said it processes more than 2 million death reports each year and appropriately stops payments in 99.9 percent of those cases.
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The inspector general audit looked at auxiliary beneficiaries: widows, spouses, children or parents who receive the old age, survivors and disability benefits of a deceased family member. There are about 11.9 million auxiliary beneficiaries, according to the Social Security Administration. When the auxiliary beneficiaries die, payments are supposed to stop.
In one case cited by auditors, more than $17,000 in benefits was paid into the bank account of a dead woman in St. Louis before officials caught the error.
The problem for the agency comes when surviving family members fail to report a death.
Survivors are supposed to contact the Social Security Administration and inform them of the death of a beneficiary, Johnson said, but “unfortunately, we have a lot of people out there that are not doing that.”
Most of the money was being deposited directly into dormant bank accounts without the knowledge of surviving relatives, Johnson said.