Recent Legislation

On May 24, 1996, the Commissioner of Social Security sent draft legislation to the Congress. The legislation would authorize the Commissioner to enter into agreements with willing state and local “correctional facilities.” Under these agreements, the Commissioner would pay the facility for each report of a newly admitted inmate who has been a Social Security or SSI beneficiary but is not, as a prisoner, entitled to payments. Incidence of Prisoners Receiving SSI Is Widespread

Overall, in the jail systems we reviewed, we detected a total of $5 million in erroneous SSI payments to prisoners. Erroneous payments to individual prisoners ranged from less than $100 to over $17,000. We determined that 136 prisoners received in excess of $5,000, including 19 who received more than $10,000. SSA Field Offices Are Not Obtaining Prisoner Information From County and Local Jails

At the start of our review, we contacted 23 county and local jail systems to determine if they were regularly providing prisoner information to SSA. It has relied primarily on (1) the recipients or their representative payees to voluntarily report incarceration and (2) redeterminations. Recommendations

In order to identify SSI recipients who have been erroneously paid in prior years, we recommend that the Commissioner of SSA direct SSA field offices to obtain information from county and local jails on former prisoners.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO determined whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) is making erroneous supplemental security income (SSI) payments to prisoners in county and local jail systems.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) a total of $5 million has been erroneously paid to prisoners in local and county jail systems; (2) these erroneous payments are the result of SSA field offices' inability to obtain prisoner information on a regular basis, SSI recipients' failure to report their incarceration, and SSA inability to verify recipients' eligibility for SSI; (3) the Commissioner of Social Security has sent draft legislation to Congress that would authorize payment to each correctional facility reporting newly admitted SSI beneficiaries; (4) erroneous payments to individual prisoners range from $100 to more than $17,000; (5) 136 prisoners have received more than $5,000 in erroneous SSI payments and 19 prisoners have received more than $10,000 in erroneous SSI payments; and (6) SSA is requesting its field offices to obtain prisoner information from both county and local jail systems and emphasizing the importance of monitoring field offices' compliance with this procedure.