In a previous blog post we discussed that millions of Social Security beneficiaries had not yet received the latest round of stimulus payments and that members of Congress were pressuring Social Security to provide answers of why these people had not already received their payments.
To be fair, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is in charge of providing these payments to the public, but it turns out Social Security was supposed to provide information about beneficiaries to the IRS before the stimulus payments could be issued. Below is a portion of a story from Yahoo Finance that details what happened. It turns out the letter the members of Congress sent Social Security got the ball rolling, but Social Security’s negligence in proving this information earlier shows that new leadership is needed at the agency.
From Yahoo Finance:
Nearly 30 million people who receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits have been waiting to get a third stimulus check because the Social Security Administration failed to send critical information to the IRS. Fortunately, that wait should come to an end soon, now that the SSA has finally forwarded the necessary data to the tax agency.
It took a letter from four Congressmen to get the SSA to send the requested information, which they did the day after the letter was sent. However, according to the Congressmen, the necessary payment files arrived a month after the IRS requested them. That delay held up payments to millions of Americans.
The IRS has already sent approximately 127 million third-round stimulus payments worth about $325 billion over the past two weeks. More payments will be sent on a weekly basis going forward. So, hopefully, payments to the Social Security and SSI recipients who have been waiting can be sent in one of the next few batches.
