Billionaire Elon Musk, the driving power behind United States President Donald Trump’s budget-cutting Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), has broached the delicate situation of Social Safety value financial savings on the TV channel Fox Enterprise.
Musk informed host Larry Kudlow, a former Trump financial adviser, that the Authorities Accountability Workplace estimated in 2024 that federal authorities fraud was “half a trillion {dollars}”.
Whereas referring to waste, Musk mentioned: “A lot of the federal spending is entitlements. In order that’s like the large one to remove. That’s the kind of half-trillion, perhaps $600, $700bn a yr.”
Utilizing the phrase “remove” in the identical breath as “entitlements” set off alarms amongst Trump’s and Musk’s Democratic critics. White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned on the March 11 information briefing that Musk was referring to chopping waste, fraud and abuse in these programmes, and Trump “goes to guard Social Safety”, Medicare and Medicaid.
At a March 11 occasion selling Tesla automobiles on the White Home, a reporter requested Musk if he may assure there can be no interruption to Social Safety advantages.
“We’re going to be very cautious with any advantages,” Musk mentioned. “Actually, solely by tackling waste or fraud can we really protect these programmes for the long run.”
“Fraud” and “waste” imply various things. Waste refers to careless use, and fraud contains felony wrongdoing.
Musk referred to a report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO), a nonpartisan auditing arm of Congress that examines federal spending. In 2024, the workplace estimated there are $233bn to $521bn in fraudulent funds throughout the federal government per yr.
The report went additional than Social Safety, Medicare and Medicaid, which make up about half of obligatory authorities spending. It covers all the authorities, together with pandemic-related reduction programmes that resulted in file fraud.
Musk mentioned chopping fraud and waste will assist his efforts to slash $1 trillion from the federal finances. However his estimates for fraud are on the prime finish of the GAO’s estimate or exceed it. For Social Safety, the inspector normal in 2021 discovered about $300m in funds was made after the deaths of beneficiaries over about 20 years – about one-third of which was recovered. Though federal officers have lengthy recognised improper spending as an issue, it’s not the principle cause for the programme’s dire monetary outlook.
What does the federal government learn about total fraud?
In April, the Authorities Accountability Workplace beneath President Joe Biden produced what it known as a “first-of-its form, government-wide estimate of federal {dollars} misplaced to fraud”.
The workplace’s estimate of $233bn to $521bn misplaced in fraud per yr lined 2018-2022 information in stories from company inspectors normal and fraud stories submitted to the Workplace of Administration and Funds.
Musk cited the excessive finish of the vary when he mentioned “half a trillion”. The White Home didn’t reply to our query in regards to the supply of his $600bn to $700bn determine.
The GAO’s top-line figures included not solely official fraud findings from authorized proceedings but additionally estimates from particular person companies’ findings of fraud. The company additionally extrapolated figures it believed represented undetected fraud.
The estimated losses symbolize about 3 % to 7 % of common federal outlays.
The Workplace of Administration and Funds, the company that assists the president in assembly his finances objectives, discovered a decrease determine of federal authorities fraud, from $4.41bn to $7.31bn yearly, based mostly on quantities confirmed via a judicial or adjudication course of.
Consultants on the federal finances mentioned it’s necessary to concentrate to the total evaluation within the authorities stories.
Joshua Sewell, director of analysis and coverage at Taxpayers for Widespread Sense, mentioned taxpayers ought to view these numbers with a “large grain of salt”. The report is crammed with caveats and is probably going not consultant of different years due to the rise in pandemic spending.
“It’s a nice report back to attempt to put numbers to an amorphous situation, however you possibly can’t take the high-end numbers as a definitive assertion on the greenback quantity of fraud that exists in federal spending,” he mentioned.
It’s attainable that about 5 % of the annual federal finances is misplaced to fraud and a few programmes have improper fee charges in extra of 10 %, mentioned Bob Westbrooks, govt director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a authorities committee Congress created 5 years in the past. However the phrase “improper funds” doesn’t essentially imply fraud; it contains eventualities with inadequate documentation.
“Regardless of the quantity, it’s large in absolute phrases,” Westbrooks mentioned, referring to all fraud.
Westbrooks mentioned Musk was conflating fraud and waste and ignoring that COVID-19-era fraud was doubtless pushing up the federal government’s estimated vary, because the report itself famous.
The Authorities Accountability Workplace mentioned the vary is a “reflection of each the uncertainty related to estimating fraud and the variety within the threat environments that had been current in fiscal years 2018 via 2022”.
What will we learn about Social Safety fraud?
On the March 11 White Home briefing, Leavitt cited an inspector normal report from the Social Safety Administration that discovered greater than $70bn of fraud in that programme alone.
The 2024 report didn’t conclude there was greater than $70bn in Social Safety “fraud”. It mentioned the programme despatched virtually $71.8bn in “improper funds” from 2015 to 2022, a interval that features Trump’s first time period. That’s lower than 1 % of total funds in that timeframe.
On Fox Enterprise, Musk mentioned “there’s an enormous quantity of fraud” with folks submitting faux Social Safety numbers to obtain a spread of presidency advantages, together with Social Safety, healthcare and unemployment help.
A lot of the improper payouts revealed by the inspector normal had been overpayments with some underpayments. This occurs, for instance, when beneficiaries fail to report needed info or the administration fails to replace data, the 2024 inspector normal report mentioned. Neither represents felony intent essentially.
The Social Safety Administration has lengthy struggled to curb improper funds.
“With out higher entry to information, elevated automation, programs modernisation, and coverage or legislative modifications, improper funds will proceed to be a problem into the long run,” the report mentioned.
The Social Safety Administration inspector normal in 2021 discovered $298m in funds after dying to about 24,000 beneficiaries from 1998 to 2019. These beneficiaries had been in suspended fee standing, however the funds had been nonetheless despatched as a result of technicians didn’t observe coverage or search all accessible dying data. The report mentioned it “didn’t establish particular cases of fraud” and offered dying info to the Workplace of Investigations.
The federal government recovered about $84m, the report mentioned.
Simply this yr, defendants have been convicted or sentenced for fraudulently cashing cheques despatched to deceased beneficiaries, for id theft used to acquire Social Safety advantages and for theft of Social Safety funds meant for kids.
How has the Social Safety Administration tried to deal with fraud and waste?
Musk mentioned within the Fox Enterprise interview that the federal authorities had completed “many good audits” however the companies haven’t applied auditors’ steering persistently.
On March 3, the Social Safety Administration’s inspector normal launched a standing report on its most up-to-date suggestions.
In all, the inspector normal discovered 280 prior suggestions that had not been applied with potential financial savings of $18.4bn. In some instances, the Social Safety Administration disagreed with the proposals. A few of the unimplemented suggestions included nearer scrutiny of particular teams of beneficiaries for whom the company is conscious of attainable discrepancies. Others urged modifications within the pc system’s alerts.
A few of the Authorities Accountability Workplace’s suggestions to Congress have additionally gone unimplemented. In 2022, the GAO urged Congress to amend the Social Safety Act to make everlasting the sharing of full dying information with the Treasury Division, however that hasn’t occurred but.
Social Safety is financially in bother in a decade
Social Safety faces a tough path forward. Its existential funding woes are greater than the cases of lifeless folks getting profit cheques.
Essentially the most important threats to Social Safety’s long-term viability are a scarcity of staff feeding their tax {dollars} into the system and a rising variety of retirement-age People qualifying to obtain advantages.
American life expectancy has risen since Social Safety’s creation in 1935 and so has the variety of eligible recipients. However because the child growth era (born from 1946 to 1964) enters retirement, fewer staff are paying into the system.
The Social Safety belief funds received’t be capable to pay one hundred pc of advantages by 2035, the 2024 Social Safety Trustees Report mentioned. The trustees have issued comparable warnings for greater than a decade.
Traditionally, most politicians from each events have been loath to suggest Social Safety modifications. Political pundits typically seek advice from it because the “third rail” in American politics – you contact it, you die, a minimum of on the poll field, the place older voters usually have the best voter turnout.
