On November 20, 2009 President Obama issued Executive Order 13520, which required the Social Security Administration to investigate purported incidents of overpayments to recipients of Social Security Disability payments and Supplement Security Income. Yesterday, the Office of the Inspector General issued a long-awaited report on its investigation into “High Dollar Overpayments.”
The results were quite shocking. After a thorough review of several years worth of cases where high-dollar overpayments could have potentially occurred, the report determined that there were … zero cases of high-dollar overpayments.
You heard that right. Instances of high-dollar overpayments to Social Security recipients are so rare that a team whose entire job was to investigate and identify such cases couldn’t find even one example. To wit: “[T]he methodology for identifying high-dollar overpayments did not detect existing overpayments the Agency deemed reportable based on SSA’s interpretation of the criteria of the Executive Order.”
This report puts to rest the allegations from conspiracy theorists and other big government naysayers that have claimed that ‘moochers’ are bankrupting Social Security.
