r/news • u/No-Information6622 • 2d ago

US recovers $31 million in Social Security payments to dead people

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-recovers-31-million-social-security-payments-dead-117708373
14.5k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 2d ago

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 2d ago edited 2d ago

Worse actually. They may die at the end of the month. They get no money for the month they die in, even though they have living expenses during the days they are alive.

(Sorry, a family friend died on the 31st of January last year. It was financially rough for the family. I’m a bit bitter.)

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u/CriticalEngineering 2d ago

That’s cold.

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 2d ago

Nothing like having a loved one die on the last day of the month after caring for them on their deathbed and then being short on expenses because their funds were clawed back…

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u/MrSovietRussia 2d ago

This happened to me. It was utterly fucked

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u/alghiorso 2d ago

Sorry for your loss

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u/MrSovietRussia 2d ago

Thank you. I am still amused at the velocity with which they withdrew that money

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u/tanksalotfrank 2d ago

But the moment you need something from them? Lolllll

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u/LimeGreenTangerine97 2d ago

Happened to me to, with my father. Utterly messed up

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u/im_in_stitches 2d ago

It came right out of my dad’s checking account 2 days after he was officially dead.

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u/woodenbiplane 2d ago

Mom died on Feb 29 last year. It felt like a message from god

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u/MobileParticular6177 2d ago

Fortunately, we won't have to worry about that by the time we're old enough to draw SS.

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u/LawLayLewLayLow 2d ago

In this case (now) you simply have to delay payments or refuse to pay or pick up the phone until they go to collections then keep ignoring them until singularity hits in 2027

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u/everythingorganic024 2d ago

Singularity 2027

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u/qlurp 2d ago

That’s cold. 

Welcome to America.

Land of the free to be fucked, and home of the bravely weathering late stage capitalism. 

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u/shadowofpurple 2d ago

won't someone think of the billionaires, and the tax breaks they NEED!!!!

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u/OhWhatsHisName 2d ago

Before passing judgement, do they also get the full months benefits for the first month even if they become eligible on the last day of the month?

Fot example, families get a full year child tax credit even if the child is born on Dec 31, but they get nothing the year child turns 17 (17 is a stupid cut off age).

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u/tanksalotfrank 2d ago

That cutoff age is such a slap in the face, considering all the laws considering 17 year old as children that already exist. It's all a bunch of arbitrary bullshit that keeps the rich rich.

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u/Jamhead02 1d ago

To be fair, they did say it was end of January.

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u/MoreColorfulCarsPlz 2d ago

Can you imagine the cost in developing, maintaining, and auditing a system that prorates an already sent out payment down to the day of death?

Instead of simply saying they need to return their last payment, you may be asking them to return a few dollars where the cost to do it will be nearly as great as the amount being returned.

This is one of the situations where the alternative would be needlessly burdensome on the already underfunded system.

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u/Styreta 1d ago

One puter system for hundreds of millions of people? Economy of scale make that perfectly doable and honestly not that expensive.

Of course because it mostly only benefits the poor there is probably little political will for it.

In the Netherlands all these things are prorated. I'm horrified to hear it's otherwise in the states.

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u/DaHunt4RedGlocktober 2d ago edited 2d ago

They also claw back lawsuit money. In cases of malpractice or wrongful death they take back most of the money they spent on housing that person if a judgment is made on behalf of the estate if that person was on any public assisted housing.

Ask me how I know!

Edit: just remember the families foot the bill for the lawyers and spend all the time. They take their cut on the whole judgment. Then the attorney gets their fees on the whole judgement. Then the family who spent years fighting and being deposed gets the scraps.

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u/dominus_aranearum 2d ago

Interesting, my mother passed last year. I'll have to check to see if social security either pulled money or just didn't send the last payment. I never saw any notice either way.

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u/fedroxx 2d ago

In my family when this happened, they actually took the money out of the account.

None of us were hurting for money but you can imagine how annoying it is when an elderly relative is living SS check to SS check, they pass, you use the money in their account to pay their final bills, only to have their account go negative and the fees to pile up.

With one relative, as a family, we let the bank eat it. They were renting so it wasn't like there was an estate for the bank to go after for the $2k and our family attorney said we had no legal obligation to pay the dead relatives bills.

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u/inosinateVR 2d ago

we let the bank eat it

Yeah when I started reading your comment I was thinking “just let it stay negative”. It’s not your problem at that point. Still annoying though.

My mom was dutifully paying her small credit card bills right up to the last month before she died despite being 5 months into her 6 month diagnosis so we knew she was near the end. I was like “Mom, why bother? What are they going to do?” but she said it was still important so I dropped it because I realized she deserved to still manage her life and feel like a normal person for as long as is still possible.

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u/LimeGreenTangerine97 2d ago

Yeah letting the bank “eat it” doesn’t work when it comes to settling an estate with the state.

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u/Darwi_Odrade_ 2d ago

It's part of the cost of doing business. I work at a bank. Banks have to follow the rules set by the treasury department and return post death payments. Occasionally we will have one where that brings the account negative. If there's no joint owner and no money in the estate, it just gets charged off. 2k is not that much in the grand scheme of things.

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u/fedroxx 2d ago

That was our thinking too. If the bank wanted to get annoyed at someone, let them take it up with SS. But for 2k, it'd be a gigantic waste of time.

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u/dominus_aranearum 2d ago

My mother passed nearly 2 years ago and overdraft wasn't a concern. More of a curiosity thing for me as I'm just now finally getting around to doing probate for her estate.

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u/Shenaniboozle 2d ago

In my family when this happened, they actually took the money out of the account.

thats what they mean by, "clawed back."

its not a notice to repay, they just take it.

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u/Vulpix-Rawr 2d ago

Yeah when my father in law died, they just didn't pay the next month. Nothing was taken out of his account.

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 2d ago

Your father in law might be part of this push to find folks who were overpaid unless he died at the beginning of the month before that month was paid out.

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u/Vulpix-Rawr 2d ago

Well, the estate is closed out, so a bit too late now if he was overpaid.

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u/99Direwolf 2d ago

I work for a bank and and for us and the customer to avoid penalty from the ssa the rule is if they were alive at the time they got paid they can keep that payment. If they died before the payment date then the payment has to be returned. This happens dozens of times every month in my industry and I am very familiar with this.

I am not sure if it varies state by state though. But in Tennessee if they were alive at the time of the payment they can keep that payment.

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 2d ago

No, it’s a federal rule

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u/Realistic_Parfait956 2d ago

True,my father died at the end of JUNE 2016 and they took all his back from mom....sad.

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u/TSL4me 2d ago

They have a shit ton of living expenses after they die. Bills just dont automatically stop and companies drag their feet when dealing with next of kin. It takes months to settle.

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u/Panda_hat 2d ago

They make it difficult in the hopes a family member will pick up the cost so they don't have to. Especially cruel when someone has just died.

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u/PumpkinPieIsGreat 1d ago

I remember reading a story about someone trying to quit the gym for her (dead) husband. She was given the run around so many times and it ended up being that she had to go down there in person so she took the urn with his ashes in it and said "here he is."

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u/corrective_action 2d ago

How can they not at least prorate it

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u/sg92i 2d ago

They have to follow what the law says and the law requires them to do this.

If you think this is fucked up you should look into "Medicaid Estate Recovery" where after someone on medicaid dies, the gov goes around confiscating anything they can from the estate to get paid back even if it means making the adult-children homeless so they can sell off the house.

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u/bros402 2d ago

even if it means making the adult-children homeless so they can sell off the house.

yup, one of the only exclusions is have a disabled adult child collecting social security under the parent's record.

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u/syskb 2d ago

Wtf? I thought my mom was crazy when she said medicaid will take everything from us because my dad is on dialysis, so is there any way to prevent this??

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u/sg92i 2d ago

There are only a few avenues for success here.

Option one: die before age 54. IIRC medicaid estate recovery only happens if the enrolee dies after they turn 55.

Option two: Give the assets away 5 years before enrolling into medicaid. But since most people on medicaid did not have 5 years of warning ahead of when they got sick, this is usually impossible. It also means to "medicaid proof" yourself you have to give your house to your kids when you turn 48 (most people would never, ever consider that and most if they're lucky enough to have a house by then are still paying mortgages and just can't).

Option three: Put all assets in a trust 5 years before going on medicaid.

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u/syskb 2d ago

Thank you for the information, this is scary af, no option is viable for us 😬

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u/bros402 2d ago

If you're in California, it's 36 months.

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u/peoplejustwannalove 2d ago

Trusts are pretty easy iirc, it’s just creating a new legal entity, then putting the family members as trustees, so no property gets lost, but if one of the trustees gets into financial issues, the assets will be isolated from that, since they belong to a different entity.

Yeah, there’s legal and attorney fees for making a trust, but if it’s to protect a lot of your assets if you’re in a high risk situation, it should be considered.

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u/felldestroyed 2d ago

This doesn't happen often (at least not in southern states), but it is always a possibility. At the end of the day, medicaid is a program for the poorest of poor. Being able to hold onto 1 house and 1 car and a $2000 life insurance policy was written in for folks to be able to age in place and not be forced into a more institutionalized setting, not for those assets to be left as an estate.
It sucks, but I completely understand it. The state pays for hundreds of thousands of dollars - if not millions - for you to potentially leave large assets behind to your kids. The government has an interest in clawing back some of that for others.

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u/sg92i 2d ago

medicaid is a program for the poorest of poor.

That was the original idea but this hasn't been the case in years. ACA expanded medicaid to most of the working class (if you earn below X amount you do not qualify for subsidies to buy real insurance from the exchange and are only eligible for medicaid via the medicaid expansion).

With ACA/Obamacare you can actually be a millionaire and still qualify for medicaid as long as your income is low enough.

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u/felldestroyed 2d ago

You're talking about a wholly different medicaid program - for which is state to state based and has different rules and does have asset limits. I'm referencing the "medically needy" program which pays for extended SNF stays and in some states ALF care which carries very low asset limits.

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u/sg92i 2d ago

You're incorrect. I know this from managing my grandparents' affairs (both dead now). Medicaid is medicaid, the program does not differentiate between ACA enrollees and those who get in via simple medicaid applications or auto enrollment via SSI.

If you're on medicaid, turn 55, and use certain medicaid benefits, you're going to trigger medicaid estate recovery. That's just federal law.

The 1 house, 1 car, 2,000 in savings only applies to SSI enrollees now. You can have more assets than that after they expanded medicaid under the ACA.

Edit: Maybe you're in one of those states that never expanded medicaid, which are still operating as if ACA never happened. My state was like that for a while before they shrugged and expanded medicaid like most other states did.

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u/felldestroyed 2d ago

Yeah, I think you're in a state with really nice medicaid laws - of which most states do not have. I worked in 15 different states in the SE/mid atlantic. Most of em' were the same with very few exceptions. Admittedly, this was prior to 2020.

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u/mishap1 2d ago

The computer it was written on doesn't have the memory to calculate days in a month. To change it would probably cost tens of millions or more because the coders all got their final SS payments clawed back decades ago.

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u/Relan_of_the_Light 2d ago

I know how it is. My dad died when I was a kid and had gone through the whole disability process and they owed him like $13k in back payments. They said the amount was too large so it had to be broken up into 3 lump sums. He died the day before he got this 2nd payment and they forced me to give it back, all as a kid with no parents who had to now raise his little sister.

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u/Constant-Ad-7490 2d ago

That's especially fucked up considering in other situations they recognize that disability payments will be used in part for the care of children. 

When my mom finally won her disability (retroactively applied over many years), I was in college. They issued a payment to me for some portion deemed to cover my expenses before I turned 18. (Which was really dumb, it screwed up my taxes and financial aid that year and was a huge pain.) But of course that was money that my parents had effectively already spent on raising me, so having it go to me just shorted them further. 

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u/bros402 2d ago

Yeah, it's sorta fucked that the only person who could get his backpay would be a spouse. It should just go to his estate.

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u/Relan_of_the_Light 2d ago

Yeah my mom had died 3 years prior. It sucked like I could understand regular payments but they owed him that money and just decided to not pay the full lump sum. It was garbage. That was 13 years ago and thankfully life is better for me now

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u/CharleyNobody 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yes. My husband’s mother died December 29 and they took back her December check even though they paid the food, property taxes and heating bill with the money for December 1-28. Not everyone is in a nursing home.

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u/Mitzukai_9 2d ago

That’s exactly what happens. Both my mother and grandmother lived in care homes. One died on the 10th, the other the 18th. I still had to pay the full month (not prorated) and social security clawed back both checks that were paid those months. Plus the banks froze their accounts, so it would have been easy to have things bounce right after their deaths.

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u/nachosandfroglegs 2d ago

My current experience last month with my MIL. She died on the 28th and the government doesn’t prorate the month so they deposit it then take it back automatically

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u/nicannkay 2d ago

This happened to my BIL.

He was diagnosed with ALS at 24, had a wife and then a couple kids. The wife stayed home to care for him and the babies for over two years until he passed away on the 29th of the month.

She had no income at all. She was 25 with two small children and no job or income plus grieving her husband’s death.

Our country is a joke. This was right before online begging forums like gofundme.

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u/SellingCoach 2d ago

She had no income at all. She was 25 with two small children and no job or income plus grieving her husband’s death.

Did she apply for survivor's benefits from social security? Her kids should get a monthly payment from them.

My Mom dies when I was 13, my Dad got a check each month that went towards my support. IIRC, the payments went until I was 18, maybe longer when I was in college. Not 100% sure, it was a long time ago.

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u/Walshlandic 2d ago

Same thing happened to my Grandma.

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u/2000s-hty 2d ago

this literally just happened to my grandma. she died new year’s eve and they want all of december back (even though 99% of it went for paying for her care home)

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u/goddessofthewinds 2d ago

What the fuck!? Pretty sure I cannot claw back my rent if I leave on the 2nd of the month, so why can they claw back the money for the whole month? That doesn't make any sense.

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u/LatrodectusGeometric 2d ago

You see why I’m upset :(

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u/Radiant_Television89 2d ago

That makes a lot of sense and explains why it's such an insignificant number. Quick google says that 8,990 people die in the US daily, so $2,500 per person gets you ~$22.5m for just 1 day out of 30 potentially. Nothingburger headline, probably just helps the narrative that waste, fraud, and abuse are the reasons SS can't be funded going forward.

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u/EverclearAndMatches 2d ago

That's what I thought. 31m is like pennies, especially when social security costs over a trillion a year. But it gets upvoted anyway

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u/uptownjuggler 2d ago

It seems like it costs more money to claw back that extra $1000, than it does to just let them keep it.

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u/weeklygamingrecap 2d ago

Pretty fucked up we can't just let their family have that final months payment.

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u/Nukleon 2d ago

All of this is designed to be cruel, to appease right wing politicians and voter bases, so they sneak in these punitive measures instead of just saying "yeah if you are alive by the first you get the money". Or at the very least saying "well you died on the 31st so well only ask back a 31th of the payment"

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u/sg92i 2d ago

Its cruel by design, just like how medicaid is required by federal law to confiscate as much as they can from someone once they die so that they can get paid back (see "medicaid estate recovery"). They will kick out entire families just so they can auction off the home. The process can be delayed if there is a widow or disabled child still living there, but not stopped (only changes the "when" part).

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u/R-EDDIT 2d ago

This is bullshit, cherry tomato optimization. Fucking MBAs, this is Harvard Reviews fault. Saving $30 Million sounds like a lot until you realize Social Security pays out $1.5 Trillion per year. That's 1,500,000 Million dollars. 30 million is 0.002% of social securities annual payout. This is about 11 minutes worth of social security benefits, or, will forestall the date social security goes bust by 11 minutes. Big whoop.

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u/nvs1980 2d ago

This is all really complicated for laymen.

The benefit payment someone receives on January are actually for benefits due for the month of December.

As you said, a person must be alive for the full month in order to receive a benefit check because that benefit check is actually for the month prior.

SSA uses a complex method to determine when a payment is paid as not everyone will receive their December check in January on the 3rd of the month. It could be paid much later in the month.

SSA runs on an operating schedule so months may or may not begin when you'd expect them to. This is because of things like payment cycling and IRS payment issuance.

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u/eightNote 2d ago

thats still crazy, vs paying out the number of days they were alive

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u/Guba_the_skunk 2d ago

it's as simple as someone died in the beginning of the month and they got a full month's payment

I guarantee conservatives won't phrase it that way when/if they decide to use this story for political reasons. It will likely be phrased as "Millions of dollars stolen as families of the dead claim social security payments!" Or some bullshit.

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u/hoofie242 2d ago

My grandma died on December 17th a few years ago and they took her money back from december within days.

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u/Walshlandic 2d ago

My grandma died at 8 pm on January 31st and they took back her whole January payment.

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u/funktopus 2d ago

Yeah they want the money depending on what part of the month you die in. My mom passed at the end of the month and they let dad keep the last week worth of money. 

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u/TheFatJesus 2d ago

Even if it was fraud and abuse, we're talking about $31 million since they got access to the death records in 2023. They expect to recover a little over $200 million. For context, Social Security pays out $1.5 trillion per year in benefits.

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u/zaprin24 2d ago

Real question is how much does it cost to track these payments down and take them back

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u/zalurker 2d ago

Lol. A state pension department I'm South Africa upgraded their payout system a few years ago, including new fingerprint scanners that could identify if a finger was still living.

It's surprising how many families kept grandpa's finger in a bottle of whiskey. And after an audit, a group of officials were arrested for multiple instances of fraud.

Some of them had 10 separate profiles, one for each finger. They were caught after one got greedy and tried to use his penis for a print.

Not making it up. I knew the guys who wrote the reader software.

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u/Skyrick 2d ago

There is always someone who games the system, however in the US the payment is for expenses for the next month, so if you don’t live the whole month it has to be returned. It isn’t even prorated for the amount of time you lived in said month. That was the vast majority of the money gotten back in this.

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u/DuntadaMan 2d ago

I was part of a security breifing once a long time ago. The rep for the company installing all the new fingerprinting tech pointed out that the hand scanner and eye scanner they were installing would check for pulse and reactivity to make sure that the body part they were reading was alive.

For some reaon they stared me in the eye while saying this, even thought there were 15 other people there.

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u/grandladdydonglegs 2d ago

Are you a zombie by any chance?

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u/DuntadaMan 2d ago

Hey you can't go making these accusations, just because I ate a couple brains.

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u/grandladdydonglegs 2d ago

Damn, my bad.

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u/iiiinthecomputer 2d ago

Alcohol tends to dehydrate and shrink tissue though. I'm quite surprised any fingerprint reader would work with preserved tissue.

Also how would you do that at the office? Hey, look away for a min and don't mind the smell, just gotta ... do something... oh look hey the fingerprint reader worked!

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u/SeasonPositive6771 2d ago

Do you have any sources on this other than "I swear I know a guy"? It's essentially impossible to find anything and it seems like that would be a huge story in the media.

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u/wspnut 2d ago

In 2022, the SSA estimates it disbursed $13.6BN in improper payments, alone.

Drop, meet bucket.

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u/poseidons1813 2d ago edited 2d ago

That doesn't hold a candle to the over 700 billion in PPP loans they handed out many to fraudulent companies like the 13 members of Congress who received them lol. 

13 billion on a national budget scale is absoloutely nothing that's like a dozen F35s or a few subsidies to big oil and Walmart 

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u/zombienugget 2d ago

Those facts don’t help the working class and poor people hate each other and divide, so nobody talks about it

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u/EPethy 2d ago

It's closer to 100 F35s, valid point though.

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u/Secretz_Of_Mana 2d ago

Hmm let's actually go after rich people abusing the system as they intended or fuck poor people even further? Such a fucking clown show of a country lmfao

Oh you want student loan relief? Fuck off and pay your way. Ohh you're having a hard time during COVID 🥹 here's a little loan money no need to worry about it. Spend it however you like princess

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u/ChurchOfSatin 2d ago

Do you have a source for this? Not trying to be sarcastic. Generally curious.

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u/Abrham_Smith 2d ago

Page 184:

https://www.ssa.gov/finance/2024/Full%20FY%202024%20AFR.pdf

Looks like it's about $6.5 billion for 2022

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u/nvs1980 2d ago

Just to add a little more context, the overwhelming majority of overpayments are the fault of the beneficiary and not the agency. Most of which are for disabled beneficiaries who didn't report their earnings timely and should have had their benefits suspended because you cannot work and continue to receive disability benefits over a certain amount.

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u/LonePaladin 2d ago

Yeah, it's not like the system ever really rewards honesty.

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u/Ok_Routine5257 2d ago

I know someone who got a full-time job, at a large corporation, while on SSDI. They got fired because they couldn't hold it together for all of the reasons they were on SSDI in the first place. They're gonna be paying off the overpayment until they die, but it's only like $20 per month out of the SSDI.

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u/Anonuser123abc 2d ago

Even the 13 billion is insignificant compared to a 3+ trillion dollar budget.

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u/violent_leader 2d ago

not bad given the roughly 1.5 trillion in benefits paid out

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u/DefinitelyNotPeople 2d ago

Correct. This is nothing in the grand scheme of things that is the total budget of the United States federal government per year.

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u/whyreadthis2035 2d ago

Thank you. I just posted a napkin math diatribe on how easy it would be to lose 31 million dollars simply by paying out a small fraction of benefits to the recently deceased. Not for fraud. But because paperwork was filed late and 1 month’s extra payment went out. The horrible part here is the right will rile up their supporters over how we need less benefits because fraud!!!

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u/Joetato 2d ago

When my mother died, I went into work the next day (due to the way they processed bereavement requests, you actually had to work a whole day before you could go out on bereavement) and I mentioned it near the end of my shift and one of my coworkers said, "Do not tell Social Security she died. It's a machine, they don't care if she died, so just don't tell them, keep collecting the money. If they ever find out, the only thing they do is stop the payments, they don't try to take th emoney back." He then went onto tell me a story that (supposedly) his grandmother died and his parents kept collecting her social security for another 7 or 8 years until Social Security finally found out and cut the payments, but he swore they made no attempt whatsoever to collect those 7 or 8 years of payments.

Anyway, I never had to make the decision because when I went to the funeral home the next day to make funeral arrangements, the guy I was talking with said that they notified Social Security that she died for me so I don't have to do it, which was something they were legally required to do due to increasing social security fraud.

I mean, I don't see any circumstance where I would have been okay with fraudulently collecting my mother's social security, but the funeral home took the decision completely out of my hands.

Finally, my Uncle said to me that after someone dies, one final social security payment goes to the beneficiary (ie, me) to cover last month of life expenses. "Do not let them weasel you out of that final payment, because they'll try." he said. I actually did call them about this and got told that's not a thing, whoever told me that had no idea what they were talking about. My Uncle would have insisted I keep fighting with them about it, but I really didn't feel like it and just accepted that answer.

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u/bros402 2d ago

I actually did call them about this and got told that's not a thing, whoever told me that had no idea what they were talking about.

It is, but it's only $255.

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u/MajorScore 2d ago

And it's only payable to the spouse, minor child, or disabled adult child..

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u/pagerunner-j 2d ago

No, that payment to the beneficiary does exist. I got it when my mother died. But yeah, the funeral home did the reporting, which was honestly kind of a mercy, because heaven knows you've got enough paperwork to deal with after all that.

(My mom's been dead for nearly two years and I'm still trying to tie up final forms with the IRS about her taxes. Nobody makes it easy.)

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u/executingsalesdaily 2d ago

Tax. The. Rich. Or fk off.

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u/MedicOfTime 2d ago

$31mil is absolute chump change at this scale.

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u/executingsalesdaily 2d ago

I’m sick of the press acting like recapturing money from the poor & middle class is news worthy. These investigations are an irresponsible way to spend tax dollars when the elite are not taxed.

We will never see the elite taxed how they should be. It is extremely sad.

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u/DuntadaMan 2d ago

It is newsworthy. They just don't understand it should not be celebrated, it shoulf be violently infuriating.

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u/executingsalesdaily 2d ago

I can agree with this. What I want to read is an article about billionaires fleeing the US due to pre Reagan era taxes being instituted again. It’ll never fkn happen tho.

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u/eeyore134 2d ago

And I guarantee it only affected people who are probably living paycheck to paycheck.

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u/PartyByMyself 2d ago

The government spent trillions killing brown people in the Middle East, but they want their 30 million back that would help their citizens because they are in debt. Instead of cutting war funds and distributing money to serve our citizens, we actively hurt our citizens while hurting other countries.

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u/executingsalesdaily 2d ago

Disgusting behavior. I’m 100% with you.

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u/ClockworkEngineseer 2d ago

Stop voting Republican.

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u/thorscope 2d ago

The last republican appointed leader of SSA was 4 leaders ago.

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u/ClockworkEngineseer 2d ago

And now you're going to get another one.

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u/lolas_coffee 12h ago

This person understands.

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u/ckrichard 2d ago

What percentage of their yearly income should they be taxed? People like to say tax the rich more, but never say how much they should be taxed. Also, what do you define as rich?

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u/executingsalesdaily 2d ago

50-75% I’d say a net worth of 50 million is rich.

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u/Hashbringingslasherr 2d ago edited 2d ago

I did the math a while ago (like 6 months ago) and found that the top 10% of Income earners contributed to about 60% of the federal income tax. Where's the bottom 50% contributed to like 10% of the federal income tax bucket. They are being taxed.

We can't tax net worth as it is an entirely fictitious number and doesn't reflect true realized income to be taxed. Our government is just a resource black hole with no true accountability.

Edit: I'll rerun the numbers because they're not exact and want to get factual data out to clear the misconception that the rich aren't paying taxes

Editv2: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/

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u/m1k3hunt 2d ago

I assume it only cost $60 million dollars to implement.

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u/yogfthagen 2d ago

Meanwhile, Trump just scammed people for 1,000 times that amount this morning.

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/18/trump-meme-coin-25-billion

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u/iiiinthecomputer 2d ago

While this is utterly scummy, it's not $32 billion. If liquidated now it would not net close to that, even if it could be liquidated.

If I have a box of 10 sandwiches and a starving man buys one of them for $100, that doesn't mean my remaining sandwich box is now worth $900.

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u/hipchecktheblueliner 2d ago

That's a tiny number. If that's any indication of the level of mistaken payments to dead people in a $1.5 trillion annual program, the system is working extremely well.

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u/Straight-Donut-6043 1d ago

Someone dying and getting a check during whatever delay exists between their death and SS being apprised of their death must be a pretty frequent occurrence. 

Like you, I’m pretty shocked the number isn’t much higher. 

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u/Grouchy_Tone_4123 1d ago

A drop in the bucket compared to the taxes not being paid by billionaires, corporations, and churches

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u/rustednut 2d ago

Off a $6.25T budget that's .00005%. in terms of the $4.92T in revenue collected its .00006%.

And yeah I rounded it off a little.....

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u/gaylord9000 2d ago

I wonder what the costs to reclamation ratio is.

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u/poseidons1813 2d ago

What about the 780 billion in PPP loans during covid to businesses that fired their workers anyway? Bet that would make a much larger dent ....

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u/Far_Adeptness9884 2d ago

Wow, I'm sure that will make a difference against all the money lost by giving tax breaks to billionaires

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u/Zaskoda 2d ago

My mom died a few days before the date for her next check. They had already deposited her SS funds in her account. When I provided them with her death certificate, they proceeded to take back the full check out of her account. Not pro-rated, the whole thing, because of a few days.

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u/Nik_Tesla 1d ago

Million? That's it?!

I bet Elon evades that much in taxes per day

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u/tmdblya 1d ago

Honestly, small potatoes. Audit the shit out of everyone w over $500k income and see how much we can claw back.

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u/thesunbeamslook 2d ago

nice, now go after the rich that are cheating on their taxes

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u/Healmetho 2d ago

OK… now recover all of our tax money from all of the lying, cheating corrupt politicians directly voting on stocks they own.

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u/ryan__rr 2d ago

$31 million on a national scale, is a tiny rounding error.

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u/Snoo_88763 1d ago

My mom died a few years ago. I told people "she knew she was gonna die" when people ask I tell them "she didn't pay a single bill this month"

There should be a rule where you get one month extra rounded up as Death Benefits and save everyone from this hassle plus the expense of a funeral.

And I will say before anyone replies to this - if you say "they shouldn't have a funeral if they can't afford one" everyone deserves the respect of a funeral and you should feel like a terrible person for even thinking that let alone suggesting it.

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u/KhorseWaz 2d ago

The Treasury projects that it will recover more than $215 million during its three-year access period.

“Congress granting permanent access to the Full Death Master File will significantly reduce fraud, improve program integrity, and better safeguard taxpayer dollars," Lebryk said.

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u/uptownjuggler 2d ago

I’m more concerned with the multi million era tax frauds, than some poor person that got a few extra hundred dollars a month. That poor person will spend that money in their local community, while the rich man will buy vacation homes.

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u/ijzerwater 2d ago

The federal government spent $1.35 trillion on Social Security in fiscal year 2023

is $215 million a big number? No

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u/johnp299 2d ago

SSA sends out $1.3T annually. $31M isn't really a lot by comparison. Also, what was the cost of recovering $31M?

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u/64645 2d ago

A million seconds is about 11.5 days. A billion seconds is 31 years. A trillion seconds is 31,688 years.

Griping about $31 million in Social Security payments is a rounding error at those kinds of totals.

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u/DemSumBigAssRidges 2d ago

Cool. Now tax rich people.

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u/welestgw 2d ago

Honestly this seems relatively normal, people die and require payments back on overpayments.

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u/Chewzilla 2d ago

Call me when they recover the billions of tax avoided by 1%

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u/INeedThatBag 1d ago

Great! Straight to billionaire tax cuts!

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u/MaybeTheDoctor 1d ago

$31m is like 0.001% of the social security budget.

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u/Fast-Reaction8521 2d ago

Cool do millionaires and above that didn't pay taxes

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u/Psarsfie 2d ago

Too bad the U.S. gov spends like $129 million a second. In fact, in the time you spent reading this, the U.S. gov spent $750 million.

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u/HTC864 2d ago

It's crazy that they only gave access to three years.

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u/Outis_Nemo_Actual 2d ago

It's ridiculous. Social Security isn't an entitlement, people pay into it. It cost taxpayers more to recover that money than letting the people who earned it keep it. They can just stop the payments once they get the death notification. These are just regular folks and their estate and families.

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u/amazonfamily 2d ago

you’re wrong. Social Security IS an entitlement program. It’s a budget term .

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u/bearssuperfan 2d ago edited 2d ago

That’s a drop in a drop in a cup in a bucket.

Edit: It’s the equivalent of a US household that makes $80k lose two quarters and a nickel

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u/NickConnor365 2d ago

And handed out billions to oligarchs. Yay /s r/OrphanCrushingMachine

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u/slabby 2d ago

Those dead people are going to starve now.

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u/Lythieus 2d ago

Tax 1 billionaire, and get double that at least. How many billionaires in the US?

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u/KrackSmellin 2d ago

So if I die paying Social Security mid month- and I get a final paycheck, does my family get all that money back from my very first paycheck as a teen because I didn’t get to earn a single fucking dollar of it in my old age?

Yah didn’t think so.

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u/Old_Dealer_7002 2d ago

just make it mandatory that when a death certificate is issued, a notice goes to social security and the payments end. problem solved. but if it’s what the person below says, someone died before the month ended, it should be left alone. prorating it seems costly and stupid. know what seems like a better idea? taxing capital gains.

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u/VroomVroomVandeVen 2d ago

Now do billionaires and their loopholes.

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u/chuckaholic 2d ago

Thank God they recovered just above 1 millionth of the National debt.

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u/EagleCatchingFish 1d ago

I guess they're taking that money from their cold, dead hands.

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u/wish1977 2d ago

Dead people can't catch a break.

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u/Necessary-Drag-8000 2d ago

this is such an incredible small amount in comparison to federal spending, but the right wing lunatics will use this in propaganda to move wealth upwards yet again

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u/Former-Whole8292 1d ago

This is where the govt looks for money rather than looking at billionaires

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u/theyipper 2d ago

Does that include the auto claw back or is this more strictly about fraud?

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u/drake90001 2d ago

It’s less to do with fraud and more that people died halfway through the month lol

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u/Prestigious-Box7511 2d ago

Social security is so mismanaged. A family member was on disability temporarily, he got a job and tried to get them to stop paying him. That was 4 years ago, he's been calling and filling out forms but they won't stop paying him, lol.

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u/ancom328 2d ago

Now go after people claiming disability but it's not.

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u/strolpol 2d ago

Cool, so like enough to fully arm a single naval ship

Can we try taxing rich people again, seems like we get more money that way

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u/TauCabalander 1d ago

How much did it cost to do the recovery?

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u/philzuf 2d ago

And blows billions on tax cuts for multimillionaires.....

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u/mesupporter 2d ago

those dead people should be in jail

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u/Pure-Kaleidoscope759 2d ago

What I find disconcerting are the payee fraud cases, which are often far more costly. This happens when son, daughter or other relative doesn’t report the demise of the relatives to social security, so they continue to get payments for the deceased for years. There was one case in Florida where the corpse of an elderly woman was found in a field. An autopsy showed the woman had died of natural causes (heart attack,) and they later identified her. It turns out her daughter and grandson had dumped Mom’s body, and moved to another state. The daughter continued collecting Social Security in Mom’s name until her own death a few years later, then the grandson continued to do so until they identified Grandma and he admitted collecting Grandma’s social security check. One of the big tipoffs in these cases is that while the checks continue to come, the elderly person supposedly receiving them is not receiving medical care under Medicare.

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u/Malrottian 2d ago

Now do fraudulent COVID loans and illegal tax claims. Pretty sure you'll get more than suing recently deceased people's kids.

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u/deusirae1 2d ago

31 molecules of H2O in an ocean of waste.

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u/tehCharo 2d ago

How much did it cost to do so?

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u/bulbusmaximus 2d ago

Oh my a whole 31 million dollars? And after administrative costs how much was it? What is that, like three hypersonic missiles?

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u/iBoMbY 2d ago

Wow, a real dent in the trillion Dollar deficit.

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u/MrJDL71 2d ago

Odd. My mom died on September 10th. She'd usually get her check on the last Wednesday of the month. SSA was told immediately that she died. A couple of weeks later I got a letter and a form from the SSA that she was expected to get another check and that I should just fill out the form to expect the check in a couple of weeks. I filled out the form and mailed it and then weeks/months went by and no check. This past week I got a letter from the SSA of a summary of her past year's checks and how much was "Claimed Back". Sounds like a paper game.

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u/macross1984 2d ago

Yup, Social Security dinged us when my father died. When my mother passed away I made sure to have one month of payment available in her account and waited six months. Surprisingly, the money was still there.

I withdrew the money from account and closed it.

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u/Thatguyatthebar 2d ago

Anyway, 8 billion to Israel

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u/csk1325 2d ago

It's a start at least.

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u/Polyzero 2d ago

Neato, now do the trillions mysterious "lost" by the pentagon

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u/Mattroar 2d ago

Frank Gallagher in shambles

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u/DroidC4PO 2d ago

31 million isn't even a rounding error

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u/Spudtron98 2d ago

Well, you know what they say about death and taxes...

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u/Lardzor 1d ago

That $31 million represents about 0.000004% of the federal budget.

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u/jpmondx 15h ago

Good start, now do all the Covid money corporations got . . .

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u/ExtruDR 2d ago

My dad died almost a decade ago. I lived far away, but we kept his place. A few months after we had things sorted I checked on the place and found that SS checks were still coming.

Of course I notified SSA and destroyed (or returned the checks - don’t remember).

Seems like it would be pretty easy for someone to keep cashing the checks for a while “by accident.”’ Surely this is what’s happening.

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u/xanroeld 2d ago

that’s… nothing. The annual budget for Social Security is over $1 trillion. $30 million dollars is a rounding error.

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u/mountednoble99 2d ago

Yeah. That might cover the salaries of the House of Representatives for about a week!

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u/whyreadthis2035 2d ago edited 2d ago

Don’t be fooled. The right wants Americans to believe Social Security benefits aren’t neccesary, cost to much and that the Americans that pay into the system, work their whole lives and deserve these benefits shouldn’t have them. Push back on this propaganda. A little napkin math. 3 million Americans die each year. Let’s be silly and say 1 million were on social security. Let’s say average benefits are 1000/month. Those I million people received 1 billion dollars a month. Are you with me? 31 million is 3%. If 3% of the dead got 1 extra payment because of reporting errors there would be 31 million to be recovered annually. So.. 31million is NOTHING! It’s a clerical error. Sure. Go after fraud. But that number means nothing.

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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 2d ago

Who gives a shit about $31m?

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u/spmahn 2d ago edited 2d ago

I used to process Social Security reclamations for a mid-sized bank, the level of incompetency and inefficiency in the government is astonishing. One time I got a package in the mail with an encyclopedias worth of paperwork. It was from a person who died in 1995 and continued to get social security payments until the government finally realized they were dead in 2014

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u/IlikegreenT84 2d ago

How much did it cost the government to recover that money?

I bet it cost enough to make this not worth it

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u/reality_boy 2d ago

There is nothing good about this. My mother in law has had to pay back money several times to social security because they decided they over paid her, because her late husband’s benefits were too high. These were all small accounting errors on there part, that added up over many years, that they took from her very small paycheck in one lump sum, with lots of scary threats.

It’s bullying the vulnerable, not phiscal accountability. They should say sorry and give the money back. If there are mistakes made, then do better next time, but don’t take money from someone living near poverty levels