Summary: GAO examined the Social Security Administration's (SSA) Retirement and Survivors Insurance (RSI) program, to determine the: (1) adequacy of SSA payment measurement procedures; (2) accuracy of error rates annually reported for the program; and (3) effects of errors on beneficiaries.
GAO found that: (1) although the processes SSA used to measure errors and determine payment accuracy rates were adequate, SSA did not include all of the errors it detected when it calculated accuracy rates; (2) because SSA excluded errors that occurred more than 4 years ago, underpayments, and monthly errors less than $5, its reported case error rate was about one-half of the actual rate; (3) SSA based its annual payment accuracy rates only on total dollars paid, instead of the incidence of cases in error, and did not include underpayments or certain overpayments; and (4) SSA regional assessment offices had disparities in their detection rates. GAO calculated that: (1) SSA made erroneous payments in one of six cases for an average of 5 years; (2) 60 percent of the errors were underpayments averaging $591; (3) the overpayments averaged $1,069; (4) the error amounts averaged 5 percent of total benefits paid in each case; and (5) routine SSA procedures would not have detected these errors.
