Supplemental Security Income

The problems GAO has identified with the Social Security Administration's (SSA) supplemental security income program are long-standing and have led to billions of tax dollars being overpaid to recipients. They have also compromised the program's integrity and reinforced public perceptions that the program pays benefits to too many people for too long. Although many of the changes recently made by Congress and SSA may yield improvements, the underlying problems persist. Shortcomings in program design and inadequate SSA management oversight have placed the supplemental security income program at high risk for waste, fraud, and abuse. Sustained attention from top-level SSA management as well Congressional cooperation are needed to improve the program's operations and eligibility rules.

GAO noted that: (1) the SSI program has had significant problems in determining initial and continuing financial eligibility because of the agency's reliance on individuals' own reports of their income and resources and failure to thoroughly check this information; (2) moreover, the judgmental nature of SSA's disability determination process and SSA's past failure to adequately review SSI recipients to determine whether they remain disabled have also exposed the program to fraud, waste, and abuse; (3) SSA is at risk of paying some SSI recipients benefits for too long because it has not adequately addressed their special vocational rehabilitation needs or developed an agencywide strategy for helping recipients who can enter the workforce; (4) the Congress has recently made several changes that address program eligibility issues and increase the frequency of SSA's continuing eligibility reviews; (5) SSA has also begun addressing its program vulnerabilities and has made the prevention of fraud and abuse a part of its plan for rebuilding public confidence in the agency; (6) however, GAO's concerns about underlying SSI program vulnerabilities and the level of management attention devoted to these vulnerabilities continue; and (7) as part of GAO's high-risk work, it is continuing to evaluate the underlying causes of long-standing SSI problems and the actions necessary to address them.