Dead federal retirees are paid $120 million annually, report says

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

The federal government pays out millions of dollars to dead people each year — including deceased retired federal workers, according to a new report.

In the past five years, the Office of Personnel Management has made more than $601 million in benefits payments to deceased federal annuitants, according to the agency’s inspector general. Total annual payouts range between $100 million and $150 million.

Inspector General Patrick E. McFarland, who previously reported on the improper payments in 2005 and 2008, urged OPM to more closely track such mistakes.

“It is time to stop, once and for all, this waste of taxpayer money,” he wrote in the report published Thursday.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dead-federal-retirees-are-paid-120-million-annually-report-says/2011/09/22/gIQAMjT0oK_story.html

[KG]

1. drop in the bucket compared to what's pissed away by MIC.

[99th_Monkey]

11. +1000 nt

[No Elephants]

12. True, but why piss away over $100 million a year on top of the MIC money?

[PSzymeczek]

2. Can we say

survivors' benefits?

[Booster]

3. My Mother wasn't dead a whole week before I got a letter from

the government stating there would be no more soc. sec. checks issued and that I was to refund the money for the last one, which I did. This is the kind of thing about the government that just really pisses me off and I think BOTH sides are equally corrupt and/or plain stupid. You would think people in the government would hear about one of their own dieing, and you know they do. In my book this would be worth firing a whole lot of people who are in charge of such things. :mad: I've never used this little guy before - kind of feels good.

[juajen]

10. Same thing here. When my husband died, they made sure that I

did not draw one extra penny. Don't understand the laxity here.

[No Elephants]

13. My mom, too, only I don't recall being asked for a refund.

Perhaps she died at a point in the month where OASDI felt she had been entitled to spend her check? (What the hell was left after she paid rent, anyway?)

Anyway, might suspicious that someone people's checks stop right away and some go on and on and on.

[Me.]

4. So Who's Cashing Those Checks?

[SoCalDem]

8. Probably direct deposit

and until someone sends in a death certificate, the check keep coming.. I can see it if the surviving spouse is old & poor..they may think it's worth the risk..

If a 80 yr old dies & his check keeps getting deposited,perhaps his 80 yr old widow is willing to take the risk for as long as she can..if there's no "estate", and no heirs, what have they got to lose really

[gulfbreeze]

16. My Mom had direct deposit and when she died

the government immediately sent the bank a notice to seize the entire months pay from her checking account. It took 2 years to get it straight. Mom died on Feb 1 of that year and was entitled to keep the previous (Jan) month's check; however, had she died on Jan 30, the entire payment for Jan had to be returned.

[Yon_Yonson]

9. The banksters

[Downwinder]

5. With direct deposit they just take it back.

[No Elephants]

14. Only if it is still sitting in the account--and OASDI is aware of the death.

[TxVietVet]

6. The Pentagon loses or can't account for more than that every year.

BFD.

[jwirr]

7. This is back in the 50s but my grandmother kept getting checks

addressed to my grandfather long after he died. Not survivors benefits but the same checks he had gotten when he was alive. She never reported it because she lived right across from the courthouse and thought they already knew. Fortunately she stuck them away in a drawer and did not cash them. When we found them we called SSA and they just asked that they be sent back.

The elderly do not always understand what to do when a spouse dies. There is a simple answer to this: county officials who record the death certificate should automatically send it to SSA. With fax machines it would not cost much to do.

[No Elephants]

15. $601 million in the last five years--and Boomers are only starting to get OASDI.

Pretty soon, we could be talking real money!

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Note to posters - article is talking about CSRS not OASDI

There is a trickle of fed retirees under FERS who this may be starting to apply to but vast majority is most likely the CSRS annuitants (retirees and/or survivors).

[Kolesar]

18. I expect my brother won't report my mother's death

...when she dies.

He likes spending her $950/month social security pension. She wears rags.

[24601]

19. Damn - I'm a live one and don't make anything near that. I need

to ask for a raise.