Social Security Fraud Statistics: Costs, Sources, and Penalties

Social Security fraud statistics point to a program losing tens of billions of dollars to improper payments, with a much smaller but still substantial share tied to intentional fraud. The Social Security Administration estimated nearly $72 billion in improper payments across its programs between fiscal years 2015 and 2022, and its uncollected overpayment balance stood at $23 billion by the end of FY 2023.¹² The Office of the Inspector General received 182,515 fraud allegations in a single six-month reporting period in 2024 and secured 248 criminal convictions in that same window.³

The Scale in Dollars

The $72 billion figure covers eight fiscal years and represents less than one percent of total benefits paid during that stretch, but the raw number is what drives the recovery workload.¹ At the end of FY 2023, SSA was carrying $23 billion in overpayments it had not been able to collect.⁴

Supplemental Security Income has the worst error rate by a wide margin. The SSI overpayment rate rose from 9.41 percent (roughly $5.3 billion) in FY 2019 to 10.62 percent (roughly $6.5 billion) in FY 2023.⁵ The FY 2024 SSI overpayment rate came in at 10.03 percent (about $6.35 billion), with total improper payments including underpayments reaching $7.33 billion, or 11.58 percent of SSI outlays.⁶ The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program has a much lower error rate, but because OASDI pays out far more overall, even a small percentage translates to serious money.

Fraud Versus Improper Payments

Not every wrong payment is fraud, and the distinction matters if you are reading these numbers. An improper payment is any payment in the wrong amount, whether too much or too little, and it can result from agency error, delayed paperwork, or an honest beneficiary mistake. Fraud requires intent: a person knowingly providing false information, concealing material facts, or misrepresenting their situation to receive benefits they know they are not entitled to.⁷ Most of the improper payment dollars in the statistics above are not fraud in the legal sense. They are the result of the reporting failures described below.

Where the Losses Come From

Unreported Work and Disability Cessation

The biggest single driver is beneficiaries not reporting changes that should reduce or stop their benefits. For OASDI overpayments reviewed from FY 2020 through FY 2023, 72 percent were attributed to beneficiaries who failed to report, or did not timely report, information affecting eligibility.⁸ The leading cause within that category was unreported disability cessation or earnings above the Substantial Gainful Activity threshold, meaning disability beneficiaries who returned to work at a meaningful level without telling SSA.

Payments After Death

Benefits that continue after a beneficiary dies remain a persistent problem, largely because death records do not flow cleanly between state vital records offices and SSA systems. An OIG analysis of state death reports submitted between November 2018 and October 2022 identified discrepancies that led to an estimated $327 million in improper payments, with a further $108 million at risk if SSA did not act on the outstanding records.⁹

Unreported Marriages

Certain benefits paid to divorced spouses and survivors end if the recipient remarries. OIG estimated SSA overpaid approximately $1.7 billion in OASDI benefits from FY 2017 through FY 2021 because beneficiaries did not report a marriage, roughly $346 million per year.¹⁰

Imposter Scams

Imposter scams work in the opposite direction: someone pretends to be an SSA employee to extract money or personal data from a beneficiary. Allegations of Social Security-related imposter scams rose 22.1 percent from the first quarter of FY 2023 to the first quarter of FY 2024. Younger adults file more scam loss reports, but people aged 70 to 84 report the highest average dollar losses per incident.

What Enforcement Produces

The OIG’s investigative work generates a strong financial return on its budget. The office reported a return of $97 for every $1 in its budget in FY 2024, a figure inflated by three audits identifying more than $9 billion in potential efficiency gains; excluding those, the return was $23 to $1. The FY 2025 target, based on a three-year trailing average, is $21 to $1.¹¹

In the Fall 2024 reporting period, OIG investigations produced nearly $105 million in court-ordered restitution, recoveries, and settlements. During the same six months, the office filed 288 indictments or criminal informations and secured 248 convictions.³ The Cooperative Disability Investigations program, which pairs OIG investigators with SSA and state disability agency staff to vet questionable claims, reported $39.7 million in projected program savings in the Spring 2024 reporting period alone.¹²

Administrative sanctions are used sparingly. In FY 2023, SSA imposed 24 sanctions in the Disability Insurance program and 59 in the SSI program, small numbers against the scale of the overpayment population.

Penalties for Social Security Fraud

Social Security fraud is a federal felony. A person convicted of making false statements, concealing information, or misusing a Social Security number to obtain benefits faces up to five years in prison and fines under Title 18. Doctors, health care providers, claimant representatives, translators, and current or former SSA employees who commit fraud connected to a benefit determination face up to ten years.¹³ Courts can order restitution to the Commissioner of Social Security on top of any prison term. The federal statute of limitations is five years from the date of the offense.¹⁴

Civil monetary penalties apply per false statement or misrepresentation. The base was set at $5,000, but annual inflation adjustments bring the current maximum to $10,556 per violation as of the 2026 adjustment, or $9,956 when the violator is a professional such as a physician or claimant representative.¹⁵

Administrative Sanctions

Even without a criminal prosecution, SSA can suspend benefits if it finds a beneficiary knowingly made false statements or withheld material information. Suspensions escalate with repeat findings:¹⁶

First violation: 6 consecutive months of benefit suspension
Second violation: 12 consecutive months
Third or subsequent violation: 24 consecutive months

Sanctions stack on top of any criminal penalties and do not erase the obligation to repay the overpayment itself.

If SSA Says You Were Overpaid

An overpayment notice is not a finding of fraud. It is a demand to repay money SSA says it should not have paid you. That said, recovery is the default, and as of March 27, 2025, SSA reinstated a 100-percent withholding rate for new Social Security overpayments, meaning it will withhold your entire monthly benefit until the balance is repaid. Overpayments established before that date are not affected. The SSI withholding rate remains at 10 percent of the monthly payment.¹⁷

If full withholding is not workable, call SSA at 1-800-772-1213 or visit a local office to negotiate a lower rate. You can also request a waiver by showing that the overpayment was not your fault and that repaying it would cause hardship or be unfair.¹⁸ If you disagree that an overpayment happened at all, request reconsideration within 60 days of the notice.¹⁹ The appeal challenges whether you were overpaid; the waiver accepts the overpayment and asks SSA not to collect. They are separate paths and can be pursued on different facts.

Reporting Suspected Fraud

The OIG accepts fraud reports through its online portal at oig.ssa.gov/report. You do not need proof to file; the office triages allegations and decides which warrant investigation.²⁰ Given the volume already coming in, tips that identify a specific person, program, and pattern are the ones most likely to move.

1
Office of the Inspector General. IG Reports: Nearly $72 Billion Improperly Paid; Recommended Improvements Go Unimplemented
2
Social Security Administration. Full FY 2023 AFR
3
Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration. SSA OIG Semiannual Report to Congress Fall 2024
4
Social Security Administration. Full FY 2023 AFR – Section: Improve the Prevention, Detection, and Recovery of Improper Payments
5
Office of the Inspector General. The Social Security Administration Makes Progress on Improper Payments, But Still Has Work to Do
6
Social Security Administration. FY 2025 Agency Financial Report – Other Information
7
Social Security Administration. Fraud Prevention and Reporting
8
Office of the Inspector General. OIG Report: Untimely Beneficiary Self-Reporting Major Cause for SSA Overpayments
9
Office of the Inspector General. State Death Report Discrepancies Led to $327M in Improper Payments and Cost SSA Millions of Dollars in Unnecessary Workloads
10
Office of the Inspector General. Impact of Undetected Marriages on Social Security Administration Payments
11
Social Security Administration. Office of the Inspector General FY 2026 Congressional Justification
12
Office of the Inspector General, Social Security Administration. SSA OIG Semiannual Report to Congress Spring 2024
13
Social Security Administration. Penalties for Fraud
14
Social Security Administration. Criminal Violations – Suspected Fraud
15
Federal Register. Annual Civil Monetary Penalties Inflation Adjustment
16
Social Security Administration. Social Security Act Section 1129A
17
Social Security Administration. Social Security to Reinstate Overpayment Recovery Rate
18
Social Security Administration. Request for Waiver of Overpayment Recovery (SSA-632-BK)
19
Social Security Administration. Request Reconsideration
20
Office of the Inspector General. Report Fraud