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GAO-24-107312 1 (2024-05-28)

handle is hein.gao/gaoqdt0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 of the United States May 28, 2024 Martin O'Malley Commissioner Social Security Administration 6401 Security Boulevard Baltimore, MD 21235 Priority Open Recommendations: Social Security Administration Dear Commissioner O'Malley: The purpose of this letter is to provide you with an update on the overall status of the Social Security Administration's (SSA) implementation of GAO's recommendations and to call your personal attention to areas where open recommendations should be given high priority.1 In November 2023, we reported that, on a government-wide basis, 75 percent of our recommendations made 4 years ago were implemented.2 SSA's recommendation implementation rate was 82 percent. As of April 2024, SSA had 29 open recommendations. Fully implementing these open recommendations could significantly improve SSA's operations. Since our May 2023 letter, we closed one of the remaining four priority recommendations and are adding one new recommendation on assessing software licenses.3 This brings the total number of open priority recommendations to four. (See the Enclosure for the list of recommendations.) The four priority recommendations fall into the following four areas. Ensuring program integrity. The Disability Insurance (DI) program is the nation's largest cash assistance program for individuals with disabilities. In October 2023, we testified that SSA faces ongoing challenges preventing, detecting, and recovering DI benefit overpayments, which can 1Priority recommendations are those that we believe warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies. They are highlighted because, upon implementation, they may significantly improve government operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue. 2GAO, Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2023, GAO-24-900483 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 15, 2023). 3We closed a 2016 recommendation for SSA to adjust the minimum withholding rate from $10 to 10 percent of monthly Disability Insurance (DI) benefits to allow quicker recovery of overpayments as no longer relevant. In March 2024, SSA announced a change to make the default withholding rate generally the maximum of two amounts-1 0 percent of monthly benefits or $10 per month. SSA made this change to prevent economic hardship for individuals with large overpayment debts, not to increase the amounts it collects, which was the intent of our recommendation. Given this change, we no longer believe SSA needs to take action on this recommendation. GAO, Disability Insurance: SSA Needs to Better Track Efforts and Evaluate Options to Recover Debt and Deter Potential Fraud, GAO-16-331 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 13, 2016). GAO-24-107312 SSA Priority Recommendations Page 1

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