SSA REPRESENTATIVE 

PAYEE PROGRAM

Long-Term Strategy Needed 

to Address Challenges

Statement of Daniel Bertoni, Director 

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues

Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Social 

Security, Committee on Ways and 

Means, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

GAO-13-673T

United States Government Accountability Office
Page 1 GAO-13-673T 

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Becerra, and Members of the 

Subcommittee:

I am pleased to discuss our recent work on the Social Security 

Administration’s (SSA) Representative Payee Program. Representative 

payees—persons or organizations that SSA staff appoint to manage 

Social Security benefits for those who are unable to do so for 

themselves—play an important role in ensuring that Social Security 

beneficiaries’ needs are met. In fiscal year 2012, about 5.9 million 

payees managed $72 billion in Social Security benefits for nearly 8.4 

million beneficiaries. Since 2002, the number of beneficiaries needing a 

payee has increased by nearly 20 percent, and is likely to grow further 

as the population ages.

My remarks are based on our report released today that describes the 

current and long-term challenges facing the Representative Payee 

Program and steps SSA has taken, or could take, to address them.1 To 

obtain this information, we reviewed relevant research, policies, federal 

laws and regulations, and other documents. In addition, we interviewed 

SSA officials and other parties, and visited SSA’s Philadelphia Regional 

Office. We also reviewed program trend data. In addition, we identified 

options SSA could consider to address program challenges and 

conducted interviews with individuals and organizations knowledgeable 

about the program to determine the strengths and weaknesses of these 

options. We conducted the work that this testimony is based on in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. A 

more detailed explanation of our methodology is available in our report.

In summary, we found that SSA struggles to effectively administer its 

Representative Payee Program, despite steps the agency has taken to 

address its challenges in identifying, selecting, and monitoring 

representative payees. SSA field office managers in some offices said 

that due to increasing workloads and staff attrition they sometimes have 

to perform payee program duties that lower-level staff typically handle. 

SSA is also encountering increasing numbers of beneficiaries who may 

not have a suitable payee readily available. In an effort to address this 

 

1 GAO, SSA Representative Payee Program: Addressing Long-Term Challenges 

Requires a More Strategic Approach, GAO-13-473 (Washington, D.C: May 29, 2013). 

 
 

Page 2 GAO-13-673T 

challenge, SSA hosted a webinar to recruit additional payees. However, 

agency officials said this effort did not produce any new payees. SSA 

also faces challenges ensuring that payees who are selected are 

suitable for the task. In response, SSA has implemented a pilot program 

in its Philadelphia region to screen and bar payee applicants who have 

been convicted of certain crimes such as robbery and fraud to obtain 

governmental assistance. SSA said the focus of the pilot is to determine 

how easily these additional controls can be implemented. However, 

agency officials told us they did not plan to assess whether the pilot 

actually reduces the incidence of benefit misuse in the long run. In our 

report, we recommend that SSA systematically evaluate the 

effectiveness of the pilot to help ensure that it meets its intended 

purpose of preventing misuse. SSA officials have concurred with this 

recommendation and said they will develop criteria to measure whether 

the pilot is effectively preventing misuse, as well as whether the agency 

is able to find suitable payees, before going nationwide.

We also found that SSA faces challenges monitoring payees’ use of 

beneficiaries’ SSA funds—a time-consuming process. SSA has 

developed an electronic accounting process that allows payees to submit 

reports online, which saves staff time on handling and scanning paper 

reports. However, it does not lessen the need for SSA staff to review 

some of these reports. To better leverage its resources, SSA changed 

how it selects payees for some of its discretionary reviews—from a 

random sample approach to one that targets payees at higher risk of 

misusing benefits. SSA currently identifies these payees using a misuse 

predictive model that relies on certain payee and beneficiary 

characteristics, as previously recommended by the SSA Office of the 

Inspector General (OIG) and the National Research Council.2 SSA has 

taken other steps to improve the administration of the program, but the 

OIG continues to designate the program as a major SSA management 

challenge.

Some of the actions SSA has taken to improve administration of the 

Representative Payee Program align with goals in the agency’s Strategic 

 

2 National Research Council, Committee on Social Security Representative Payees, 

Improving the Social Security Representative Payee Program: Serving Beneficiaries and 

Minimizing Misuse (Washington, D.C.: 2007); SSA Office of the Inspector General, 

Characteristics of Representative Payees that May Increase the Risk of Benefit Misuse, 

A-09-08-38055 Audit Report (August 2009). 
 

Page 3 GAO-13-673T 

Plan. However, SSA has not developed a comprehensive plan for 

addressing the challenges this program faces over the long term. The 

proportion of elderly individuals is projected to grow to nearly 20 percent 

of the total population over the next two decades and it is estimated that 

the number of aged beneficiaries could increase from over 38 million in 

2012 to over 72 million in 2035. This projected growth in the size of the 

beneficiary population has implications for the Representative Payee 

Program and the resources required to find and monitor payees in the 

future. SSA has acknowledged the potential increase in workload the 

program faces in the future, but has done little to gauge future demands 

on the program. Thus, we have recommended that SSA estimate the 

future demand for payees and the resources required to meet this 

demand, as well as determine the likely demographic characteristics of 

future beneficiaries. SSA concurred with this recommendation and 

indicated it will develop such data.

We identified several options proposed by various experts and 

stakeholders that might help SSA address its growing workload by 

increasing its pool of payees, targeting its monitoring activities, or both. 

(See table 1.) We interviewed experts and members of organizations 

who are knowledgeable about the payee program (interviewees) to gain 

their perspectives on the potential strengths and weaknesses of these 

options. These interviewees identified trade-offs with each of the options, 

mostly related to balancing SSA’s efforts to streamline and simplify the 

program with the need to protect beneficiaries from fraud and abuse. For 

example, these interviewees indicated that allowing custodial parents to 

automatically receive benefits on behalf of their children without first 

requiring them to submit a payee application would reduce SSA 

workloads, but it would also eliminate safeguards to help ensure that 

children’s benefits are being used in their best interest. 
 

Page 4 GAO-13-673T 

Table 1: Potential Options to Address SSA Challenges

Option Description

Options to increase the pool of payees 

Develop and maintain a group of readily 

available certified payees

SSA, or an entity under contract to SSA, could develop a program to identify, train, 

and certify payees who would then be available on an as-needed basis when SSA has 

difficulty finding a payee for a beneficiary. 

Permit a broader range of organizations to 

collect a fee for serving as a payee

Change the requirements in the law that organizations need to meet to collect a fee for 

their payee services by, for example, allowing for-profit organizations to collect a fee or 

changing the requirement that an organization serve at least five beneficiaries.

Select individuals appointed by other entities Automatically appoint an individual and organization as a beneficiary’s payee if they 

are already designated by one of a range of legal authorities and entities to oversee 

the beneficiary’s assets. 

Options to further target monitoring activities

Reduce monitoring requirements for 

custodial parents and spouses

Change the law to eliminate or lessen monitoring requirements for payees who are the 

custodial parent of the beneficiary for whom they are payee and for spousal payees 

who live with a beneficiary. 

Reduce monitoring requirements for 

individuals appointed by other entities

Change the law to eliminate or lessen monitoring practices for payees if they are 

already designated by one of a range of legal authorities and entities to oversee the 

beneficiary’s assets.

Expand “risk-based targeting” approach to 

exempt some payees from annual 

accountings 

Change the law to allow SSA the flexibility to select payees who would be required to 

file accountings based on indicators of misuse.

Expand use of outside organizations for 

monitoring

Expand the current contract with the National Disability Rights Network to have it 

conduct additional reviews that are currently completed by SSA staff.

Options to potentially address challenges with finding and monitoring payees 

Drop payee requirement for children Allow custodial parents to automatically receive benefits on behalf of their children and 

not require the custodial parent to apply or be designated as a payee. 

Enhance coordination with entities that serve 

similar populations 

Further develop relationships on payee matters with state Adult Protective Service 

agencies, state courts, state protection and advocacy agencies, Area Agencies on 

Aging, Aging and Disability Resource Centers, and state foster care agencies, and to 

the extent practical and permissible, share information with them on payee matters.

Source: GAO analysis.

Note: See our full report, GAO-13-473, for a more detailed description of these options as well as 

their potential strengths and weaknesses. We did not conduct an independent review of the 

feasibility or potential impact of any of these options, and we are not recommending or endorsing 

the adoption of any of them.

SSA has acknowledged that changes to the Representative Payee 

Program are needed to address its growing workloads and effectively 

manage the program, but told us that few of the options identified are 

currently under consideration by the agency. SSA has recognized the 

potential benefits of some of these options, such as limiting parental 

financial accounting requirements and developing a pool of payees for 

hard to serve beneficiaries, and has taken steps toward implementing 

them. Nonetheless, SSA officials said they cannot implement several 
 

Page 5 GAO-13-673T 

options, such as changing screening requirements for parents, because 

the agency is statutorily required to conduct these activities. They also 

indicated that some of these options would not help SSA administer the 

program more effectively or would be too costly. Despite these 

assertions, SSA officials have not fully assessed the potential benefits 

and feasibility of these options or begun to explore other alternatives that 

could help the agency address the current and growing demands on the 

program. Such an assessment could inform the types of actions that 

SSA should take, including whether the agency should pursue 

developing legislative proposals for change. In our report, we 

recommend that SSA develop a long-term strategy for addressing these 

challenges that includes developing and testing a range of alternatives 

that could streamline program processing. SSA concurred with this 

recommendation and said it is considering alternatives to streamline its 

program processing and enhance its monitoring.

Given the significant role that payees play in the lives of many SSA 

beneficiaries, it is imperative for SSA to take a long-term strategic 

approach to position itself to administer the Representative Payee 

Program effectively now and in the future.

Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Becerra, and Members of the 

Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to 

answer any questions that you or other members of the subcommittee 

may have.

For further information regarding this testimony, please contact Daniel 

Bertoni at (202) 512-7215, or at bertonid@gao.gov. Contact points for 

our Office of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 

on the last page of this statement. Individuals who made key 

contributions to this testimony include Clarita Mrena (Assistant Director), 

Sherwin Chapman, Nyree Ryder Tee, Gary Bianchi, David Chrisinger, 

Mimi Nguyen, Vanessa Taylor, Roger Thomas, and Walter Vance.

Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(131259)
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