Billionaire Elon Musk, the driving pressure behind United States President Donald Trump’s budget-cutting Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), has broached the delicate concern of Social Safety price financial savings on the TV channel Fox Enterprise.
Musk advised 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 stated: “Many of the federal spending is entitlements. In order that’s like the massive one to get rid of. That’s the kind of half-trillion, perhaps $600, $700bn a yr.”
Utilizing the phrase “get rid of” in the identical breath as “entitlements” set off alarms amongst Trump’s and Musk’s Democratic critics. White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on the March 11 information briefing that Musk was referring to slicing 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 might assure there could be no interruption to Social Safety advantages.
“We’re going to be very cautious with any advantages,” Musk stated. “In reality, solely by tackling waste or fraud can we really protect these programmes for the longer term.”
“Fraud” and “waste” imply various things. Waste refers to careless use, and fraud consists of 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 mandatory government spending. It covers the complete authorities, together with pandemic-related aid programmes that resulted in document fraud.
Musk stated slicing fraud and waste will assist his efforts to slash $1 trillion from the federal funds. However his estimates for fraud are on the high finish of the GAO’s estimate or exceed it. For Social Safety, the inspector common in 2021 discovered about $300m in funds was made after the deaths of beneficiaries over about twenty years – about one-third of which was recovered. Though federal officers have lengthy recognised improper spending as an issue, it’s not the principle motive for the programme’s dire monetary outlook.
What does the federal government learn about total fraud?
In April, the Authorities Accountability Workplace below President Joe Biden produced what it known as a “first-of-its variety, government-wide estimate of federal {dollars} misplaced to fraud”.
The workplace’s estimate of $233bn to $521bn misplaced in fraud per yr coated 2018-2022 knowledge in experiences from company inspectors common and fraud experiences submitted to the Workplace of Administration and Price range.
Musk cited the excessive finish of the vary when he stated “half a trillion”. The White Home didn’t reply to our query concerning the supply of his $600bn to $700bn determine.
The GAO’s top-line figures included not solely official fraud findings from authorized proceedings but in addition estimates from particular person companies’ findings of fraud. The company additionally extrapolated figures it believed represented undetected fraud.
The estimated losses symbolize about 3 p.c to 7 p.c of common federal outlays.
The Workplace of Administration and Price range, the company that assists the president in assembly his funds objectives, discovered a decrease determine of federal authorities fraud, from $4.41bn to $7.31bn yearly, primarily based on quantities confirmed by means of a judicial or adjudication course of.
Specialists on the federal funds stated it’s necessary to concentrate to the complete evaluation within the authorities experiences.
Joshua Sewell, director of analysis and coverage at Taxpayers for Frequent Sense, stated taxpayers ought to view these numbers with a “huge grain of salt”. The report is full of caveats and is probably going not consultant of different years due to the rise in pandemic spending.
“It’s a positive report back to attempt to put numbers to an amorphous concern, however you’ll be able to’t take the high-end numbers as a definitive assertion on the greenback quantity of fraud that exists in federal spending,” he stated.
It’s doable that about 5 p.c of the annual federal funds is misplaced to fraud and a few programmes have improper cost charges in extra of 10 p.c, stated Bob Westbrooks, government 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 consists of eventualities with inadequate documentation.
“Regardless of the quantity, it’s big in absolute phrases,” Westbrooks stated, referring to all fraud.
Westbrooks stated 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 stated the vary is a “reflection of each the uncertainty related to estimating fraud and the variety within the danger environments that have been current in fiscal years 2018 by means of 2022”.
What can we learn about Social Safety fraud?
On the March 11 White Home briefing, Leavitt cited an inspector common 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 stated the programme despatched nearly $71.8bn in “improper funds” from 2015 to 2022, a interval that features Trump’s first time period. That’s lower than 1 p.c of total funds in that timeframe.
On Fox Enterprise, Musk stated “there’s an enormous quantity of fraud” with folks submitting pretend Social Safety numbers to obtain a variety of presidency advantages, together with Social Safety, healthcare and unemployment help.
Many of the improper payouts revealed by the inspector common have been overpayments with some underpayments. This occurs, for instance, when beneficiaries fail to report crucial info or the administration fails to replace information, the 2024 inspector common report stated. Neither represents felony intent essentially.
The Social Safety Administration has lengthy struggled to curb improper funds.
“With out higher entry to knowledge, elevated automation, methods modernisation, and coverage or legislative modifications, improper funds will proceed to be a difficulty into the longer term,” the report stated.
The Social Safety Administration inspector common in 2021 discovered $298m in funds after demise to about 24,000 beneficiaries from 1998 to 2019. These beneficiaries have been in suspended cost standing, however the funds have been nonetheless despatched as a result of technicians didn’t observe coverage or search all obtainable demise information. The report stated it “didn’t establish particular situations of fraud” and supplied demise info to the Workplace of Investigations.
The federal government recovered about $84m, the report stated.
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 youngsters.
How has the Social Safety Administration tried to deal with fraud and waste?
Musk stated within the Fox Enterprise interview that the federal authorities had accomplished “many good audits” however the companies haven’t carried out auditors’ steerage persistently.
On March 3, the Social Safety Administration’s inspector common launched a standing report on its most up-to-date suggestions.
In all, the inspector common discovered 280 prior suggestions that had not been carried out with potential financial savings of $18.4bn. In some circumstances, the Social Safety Administration disagreed with the proposals. A number of the unimplemented suggestions included nearer scrutiny of particular teams of beneficiaries for whom the company is conscious of doable discrepancies. Others advised modifications within the pc system’s alerts.
A number 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 demise knowledge with the Treasury Division, however that hasn’t occurred but.
Social Safety is financially in hassle in a decade
Social Safety faces a tough path forward. Its existential funding woes are greater than the situations of useless folks getting profit cheques.
Probably the most important threats to Social Safety’s long-term viability are a scarcity of employees 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 employees are paying into the system.
The Social Safety belief funds gained’t be capable to pay one hundred pc of advantages by 2035, the 2024 Social Safety Trustees Report stated. The trustees have issued related warnings for greater than a decade.
Traditionally, most politicians from each events have been loath to suggest Social Safety modifications. Political pundits usually consult with it because the “third rail” in American politics – you contact it, you die, not less than on the poll field, the place older voters sometimes have the very best voter turnout.
