Social Security recently released a wish list of initiatives if it gets an increase in funding, something President Joe Biden is backing. Biden wants to increase Social Security funding by close to 10 percent and part of the increased funding would be spent on improving payment accuracy on benefits and an enhanced debt collection system. Both initiatives were detailed in the recent Social Security report about the president’s budget plans.
Improving Payment Accuracy
As good stewards of taxpayer dollars, we must continue to improve our payment accuracy. Given the scope of our programs—with over $1 trillion dollars paid in combined Social Security and SSI benefits in FY 2020—even a small error rate causes substantial improper payment amounts.
This Budget supports streamlining and modernizing our debt management systems; improving our death data processing; and refining the way we collect and use data to improve payment accuracy. In addition, we continue developing, rolling out, and enhancing our case processing systems to improve the accuracy of our decisions.
Payment accuracy is crucial to a Social Security case. If a disabled claimant is not paid the correct amount they face having to struggle to maintain with less money, but it could even be worse if Social Security pays a claimant too much money and wants its money back. Many times payment mistakes are not caught until after months’ worth of payment inaccuracy. If Social Security is able to improve the payment process it could mean a reduction of over payments and collection of these payments.
