{"id":1052920,"date":"2025-05-15T17:15:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1052920"},"modified":"2025-05-15T17:15:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T21:15:02","slug":"internal-docs-doge-delayed-americans-social-security-benefits-and-still-cant-find-fraud-at-ssa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/internal-docs-doge-delayed-americans-social-security-benefits-and-still-cant-find-fraud-at-ssa\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERNAL DOCS: DOGE Delayed Americans\u2019 Social Security Benefits \u2014 And Still Can\u2019t Find Fraud at SSA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"449\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1050776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png 1101w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=300,132 300w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=768,337 768w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=1024,449 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Point:<\/strong> \u201cAfter installing anti-fraud checks for benefit claims made over the phone early last month, the Social Security Administration is considering walking back the policy after finding only two cases that had a high probability of being fraudulent. \u2026 The anti-fraud tool \u2026 has slowed retirement claim processing by 25% and led to a \u2018degradation of public service,\u2019 according to an internal May document.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextgov.com\/digital-government\/2025\/05\/doge-went-looking-phone-fraud-ssa-and-found-almost-none\/405346\/?oref=ng-homepage-river\"><strong>Nextgov\/FCW<\/strong><\/a><strong>: DOGE went looking for phone fraud at SSA \u2014 and found almost none<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Natalie Alms<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>After installing anti-fraud checks for benefit claims made over the phone early last month, the Social Security Administration is considering walking back the policy after finding only two cases that had a high probability of being fraudulent.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The anti-fraud tool<\/strong> set up last month after weeks of changes to the agency\u2019s telephone policies <strong>has slowed retirement claim processing by 25% and led to a \u201cdegradation of public service,\u201d according to an internal May document<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>obtained by Nextgov\/FCW<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Under the new policy, <strong>the agency found that only two benefit claims out of over 110,000 had a high probability of being fraudulent \u2014 and they aren\u2019t guaranteed to be so. <\/strong>Less than 1% of claims were flagged as even potentially fraudulent at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The attention to fraud, however, did cause delays<\/strong>, as SSA changed its phone procedures to add the checks on the backend.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>[T]he anti-fraud check policy for benefit claims made over SSA\u2019s phone lines was one of many changes and reversals the agency announced as DOGE and White House officials made false and misleading claims about fraudsters getting benefits over the phone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Overall, <strong>fraud at SSA is a miniscule problem. Only 0.3% of SSA\u2019s old-age, survivor and disability insurance payments are considered \u201cimproper payments\u201d<\/strong> \u2014 a category that also covers mistakes, like payments that should\u2019ve been made but were missing a signature. <strong>Only a sliver of that 0.3% is due to fraud, according to a recent oversight report.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Point: \u201cAfter installing anti-fraud checks for benefit claims made over the phone early last month, the Social Security Administration is considering walking back the policy after finding only two cases that had a high probability of being fraudulent. \u2026 The anti-fraud tool \u2026 has slowed retirement claim processing by 25% and led to a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - 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