Supplemental Security Income

As a result of welfare reform, the Social Security Administration (SSA) now has a new way to identify ineligible prisoners receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments. Today, SSA receives information from 210 additional prisons, preventing about $3.6 million in erroneous payments to inmates and identifying about $3.3 million in potentially recoverable overpayments already made. Also, SSA now receives some data on prisoners more frequently and in a format more usable than before, preventing at least $2.7 million in erroneous payments. SSA has also prevented $1.6 million in erroneous overpayments and identified $1.4 million in potentially recoverable overpayments for the Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance programs. It has developed new electronic monitoring and control systems for inmate data and makes these data available to other federal and state agencies for their assistance programs, such as the Food Stamp program, which may help them improve the accuracy of their payments. Arguments that the program's $10 million cost is high are balanced against benefits that are likely to enhance the operation of SSI and other federal programs for years to come.

GAO noted that: (1) since the legislation was passed, SSA has signed incentive payment agreements with 3,115 correctional facilities; (2) between the date each facility signed an incentive payment agreement and November 27, 1998, the most recent date for which GAO has comprehensive data, SSA made a total of 39,137 SSI benefit suspensions at these facilities; (3) by suspending benefits, SSA identified $32.1 million of potentially recoverable SSI overpayments that it had already made and prevented approximately $37.6 million in future erroneous SSI payments; (4) SSA made incentive payments of almost $10 million to facilities, as required by the incentive agreements; (5) as a result of the legislation, SSA now receives more prisoner information than before; (6) GAO's analysis showed that 210 of the 3,115 incentive agreements were new commitments, that is, 210 facilities had not agreed to provide inmate data to SSA before the incentive agreement legislation; (7) at the facilities that made new commitments, SSA made 4,597 suspensions, identified about $3.3 million in overpayments that it had made to inmates, and prevented future overpayments of about $3.6 million; (8) the legislation also produced other benefits; (9) SSA made 871 suspensions, identified $1.4 million of past overpayments, and prevented about $1.6 million of future overpayments in SSA's Old Age and Survivors Insurance program and Disability Insurance program; (10) moreover, other federal and state assistance programs, such as the Food Stamp program, now have access to this enhanced inmate information, which may help them improve the accuracy of their payments; (11) in addition, after signing the agreements, some correctional facilities began to report confinements more frequently and in an electronic format that SSA can process more efficiently, resulting in prevention of at least $2.7 million in future overpayments; and (12) SSA developed several new computer systems to facilitate operations, improve the control and monitoring of facility reporting and prisoner suspensions, and account for incentive payments.