Social Security’s $6.5 billion in unjustified disbursements

The Social Security Administration made $6.5 billion in overpayments to people not entitled to receive them in 2009, including $4 billion under a supplemental income program for the very poor, a government investigator said Tuesday. In all, about 10 percent of the payments made by the agency’s Supplemental Security Income program were improper, said Patrick P. O’Carroll Jr., the inspector general for Social Security. He told a Congressional panel that most of the overpayments went to people who did not report all their assets. Error rates were much smaller for retirement, survivor and disability benefits, which make up the overwhelming majority of Social Security payments, he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/15brfs-SOCIALSECURI_BRF.html

If 10 percent of the payments made by the Supplemental Security Income program were improper because people did not report all their assets, it's time to fire the SSI employees responsible for verying applicants' income, jail the SSI applicants who lied about their income, and cut the SSI program's budget by 10%.