page_title: Welfare fraud
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Welfare fraud / Welfare fraud in various countries / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Do you suspect fraud waste or abuse? Contact the OIG.
context_page_description: Welfare fraud is the act of illegally using state welfare systems by knowingly withholding or giving information to obtain more funds than would otherwise be allocated.
  Each country's problems and programs are varied.
  Obtaining reliable evidence of welfare fraud is notoriously difficult. Apart from the obvious methodological problems, research reveals that interviewing performance is often mediocre, and may be anecdotal, misunderstood, or collected from opinionated or biased caseworkers. Interviews with non-citizen welfare recipients, where the interviewer has succeeded in gaining a high level of trust, have shown that a very high percent fail to report incomes. Official figures of the prevalence of welfare fraud based on government investigation tend to be low – a few percent of the total amount of welfare spending. Statistical research indicates that the vast majority of fraud is committed by businesses serving the recipients of government benefits. Welfare or benefits fraud committed by recipients is usually of very modest sums, and is committed by people who struggle with poverty; but once started it often continues after reaching financial stability.
context_section_description: Welfare fraud, which may include state or federal benefits, is low in incident numbers but widespread geographically, much of it committed by persons other than the benefit recipients; some of it stolen from them or collected after their death by others not entitled to it. Incidents of government program workers stealing or diverting benefits were prosecuted.
  In 2016, the Office of Investigations for the Social Security Administration received 143,385 allegations and opened 8,048 cases. Of those cases, about 1,162 persons were convicted for crime. Recoveries amounted to $52.6 million, fines to $4.5 million, settlements/judgements to $1.7 million and restitution to $70 million. The estimated savings were $355.7 million.  
  Charles Murray has suggested that the actual number of people who are unable to work must have gone down since 1960 as a result of medical advances, improved safety devices, and a decrease in occupations requiring manual work. Yet the percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3 percent in 2010 despite no substantial changes to the legal definition of physical disability.
  However, the aging of the very populous generation, the Baby Boomers, who were young in the 1960s-1980s, partly accounts for a rise in recent decade's disability claims as well as very high numbers of Social Security benefit claims. They are retiring and not as healthy as the preceding generation, generally speaking. Suspicions and assumptions are being made that don't actually point to fraud in that case and many others. This type of erroneous suspicion and resentment is very common in the popular mythos surrounding government benefits of various kinds. The myths are many, and can prevent people from receiving essential life sustaining help in time of need, due to severe restrictions based on popular demand of the well housed and well fed.
  In 2010, less than one-quarter of new welfare applications in San Diego County, California had some form of discrepancy, whether error or fraud. That county has a high number of non-citizens, which sector has been demonstrated to have a high proportion of fraud. In response to the perception of state official's volume of fraud cases, the application process has become more strict. Some advocates have expressed concern that the stricter application process would make it more difficult for families in need to receive aid.
  In Florida, from July to October 2011, cash welfare recipients were drug-tested, with advanced notice, and only 2.6% of the tests came back positive. Thus, 97.4% of recipients who chose to partake in the testing program were not using any kind of illegal or illicit drugs. Of the 2.6% who tested positive, most people tested positive for marijuana. Governor Rick Scott eventually stopped pursuing people on welfare to get tested.
  In the first half of the fiscal year 2012, the office of the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration was able to detect frauds that cost the government over $253 million.
caption: An appeal from the Office of Inspector General to contact them if one suspects fraud, waste or abuse
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