Nearly 7 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries are unable to manage their own finances and have representative payees. Representative payees receive monthly benefits on another person's behalf and are supposed to ensure the money is spent on that individual's needs. Despite laws to prevent fraud, the current system has at times failed to prevent the misuse of benefit payments. An investigation by the Social Security Administration's Inspector General found that between 1995 and May 1999, the owner of the Aurora Foundation who was acting as a representative payee, embezzled over $300,000 leaving many beneficiaries destitute. The bill would hold payees liable for misused benefits and would authorize the re-issuance of benefits misused by organizational representative payees.

The bill would also deny Social Security benefits to fugitive felons, a measure supported by TREA Senior Citizens League (see "Social Security Pays Fugitives $30 Million Annually" at http://www.tscl.org/NewContent/100872.asp). Currently fugitive felons are only denied SSI payments and may legally collect Social Security benefits while on the run from authorities. The bill is estimated to save $511 million over 10 years and has gone to the Senate.

Sources: "House Panel Ok's Social Security Act," Leigh Strope, The Associated Press, April 25, 2002. "Summary of H.R. 4070 Social Security Program Protection Act of 2002," Social Security Subcommittee, House Ways and Means, March 22, 2002.

July 2002