The SSI program pays benefits to the aged, blind or disabled adults, and children who have limited income and resources. To determine whether an SSI applicant is financially eligible, SSA is to perform an initial determination at the time of application, and to conduct periodic reviews to determine whether the recipient remains eligible. SSI recipients are required to report events that may affect their financial eligibility for benefits, including changes in income, resources, marital status, and living arrangements. SSI generally reduces the monthly benefit by $1 for every $2 of monthly earnings after the first $85. SSA matches computerized data from other federal and state agencies to help verify that the recipients’ case information is correct. SSA accesses the NDNH by means of routine file matches to verify eligibility and payment amounts under the SSI program. During SSA’s income- verification process, SSA systems generate an alert when a match between the SSA record and the verified quarterly wage file shows there are significant overreported or underreported wages. SSA uses established criteria, such as tolerances, to generate the alerts and post them to the recipient’s record for future review and development by field- office staff to determine whether the discrepancies affect SSI benefits. The NDNH database, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, contains employment data on newly hired employees (form W-4), quarterly wage data on individual employees, and unemployment insurance data. In order to verify the accuracy of data in the NDNH, the department transmits the NDNH data to SSA to verify the accuracy of the SSN and its related name against information in the SSA database. When the NDNH receives notification that the SSN is verified, the system then adds the data to the NDNH database. If the SSN is not verified it is either rejected or posted to separate files within the NDNH. GAO and the SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) have previously identified patterns of errors and irregularities in wage reporting, including SSN misuse. For example, in January 2001 the SSA OIG reported that employers in the agriculture industry submit thousands of wage items for which the employee’s name or SSN does not match SSA records. April 2005, the SSA OIG also identified the top 100 employers in each of the service, restaurant, and agriculture industries that contribute the most reporting irregularities. Several of the employers and industry associations that spoke with the SSA OIG for its April 2005 report stated that unauthorized noncitizens contribute to SSN misuse. In 2005, we reported that employers in certain industry categories are more likely than others to submit reports with invalid worker identity information. Some employers exhibit a pattern of errors year after year, such as using one SSN for more than one worker in multiple tax years. Social Security Administration, Office of the Inspector General, Obstacles to Reducing Social Security Number Misuse in the Agriculture Industry, A-08-99-41004 (Jan. 22, 2001). posted to the true number holder’s account. According to SSA policy, if earnings are identified that do not belong to the number holder, the individual may submit a signed statement “disclaiming” the wages as his or her own and have the earnings removed from his or her Master Earnings File. According to SSA, in 2010, the SSI program made a total of $44.6 billion in payments to 8.9 million recipients. Our analysis of income reported in the NDNH initially showed that SSA made $19 million in potential SSI overpayments to 10,187 SSI recipients in fiscal year 2010, but approximately 70 percent of the total overpayment amount showed indications of possible SSN misuse, such as individuals with wages reported from employers in multiple states during the same quarter, so we were unable to determine whether the recipients actually received SSI overpayments. We also found employers with high incidences of inaccurate wage reports and identified information that could be shared with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to help address possible SSN misuse. Based on comparisons of SSI beneficiary records with quarterly wage and unemployment records included in the NDNH, we initially estimated that SSA made $19 million in potential SSI overpayments to 10,187 SSI recipients in fiscal year 2010. Using a different methodology that includes additional causes of overpayments not considered in GAO’s analysis, SSA estimated to have made $3.3 billion in SSI overpayments in fiscal year 2010. SSA also considers other causes of overpayments such as pensions; resources such as real estate, bank accounts, cash, stocks, and bonds; and living arrangements. The 10,187 recipients we identified received a monthly SSI payment when, based on our analysis, they were potentially not entitled to any benefits. All of these individuals appeared to receive income in fiscal year 2010 above the maximum SSI program threshold—$1,433 per month—while also receiving SSI payments. However, as discussed below, we found indications of some possible SSN misuse and were therefore unable to determine the extent to which SSI overpayments were due to income earned by the recipient and reported in the NDNH. As shown in figure 1 below, more than 40 percent of our identified population of 10,187 SSI recipients (4,228 SSI recipients) and about 70 percent of our original overpayment estimate ($13.2 million) showed indications of possible SSN misuse. During our analysis, we identified instances in which SSI recipients were reported as having received wages by employers from different states than what was reported as their state of residence on their SSA record. We conducted additional analysis of our potential overpayment population to determine the extent to which such out-of-state wages occurred. We determined that for our potential overpayment population of 10,187 recipients, wages for 2,399 SSI recipients were reported solely by employers located outside the recipient’s state of residence. Of those 2,399 individuals, 21 were reported as receiving wages by employers from four or more different states than what was reported as their state of residence on their SSA records during the same quarter. We randomly selected 5 recipients from this group of 21 for additional review of detailed SSI case-file information. Our case-file reviews for these five recipients are nongeneralizable (i.e., cannot be projected to the entire population of individuals) but identify possible instances of SSN misuse. For each of the five cases, wages reported in the NDNH triggered alerts to SSI caseworkers for follow-up. However, all five of the recipients had evidence in their case files of wages being disclaimed. Under SSA’s procedures for disclaiming wages, recipients can provide SSA with a signed statement attesting that the wages being reported for their SSN were not earned by them. One of the recipients disclaimed wages as far back as 2004, and has repeatedly disclaimed wages every year from 2009 to 2012. Once a recipient disclaims wages, the SSI caseworker then is to take an additional step to remove the disclaimed earnings from the Master Earnings File. According to SSA, the agency had already referred four of the five recipients to SSA’s OIG for further investigation. SSA OIG stated that it reviewed the four cases, but the cases were subsequently closed due to insufficient details that hindered its ability to make a determination as to which individual was possibly misusing the SSN. The five cases we reviewed also indicated possible SSN misuse. For example, as shown in figure 2 below, one individual living in California had wages reported in the NDNH from 11 different employers in seven other states that were many miles away during the same quarter of calendar year 2010. This suggests that multiple individuals may have been using the SSI recipient’s SSN and name for work purposes. We recognize there are instances when individuals could work for multiple employers simultaneously. However, it is questionable that one person could work for multiple employers simultaneously in different regions of the country during the same quarter. Of the 10,187 individuals we identified as having received potential SSI overpayments, we also identified another 582 SSI recipients with wages reported from employers both outside and within their home state during the same quarter. Wages reported for the remaining portion of our overpayment population were solely from employers inside their state. However, this subset of recipients also showed indications of possible misuse. A total of 1,247 in-state recipients had multiple employers report wages during the same quarter. For example, we identified one individual who, according to SSA’s records, lives in a border town in south Texas, but had wages reported in the NDNH from four different employers during the same quarter of calendar year 2010 located hundreds of miles away in the Dallas / Fort Worth and Houston, Texas, areas. We recognize that it is possible for individuals that live near a state border to work in the neighboring state or for individuals to change their employer within a 3-month quarter for which wages are reported. However, without a detailed case-file review that includes contacting the recipient to determine if reported wages should be disclaimed, it is impossible to determine whether the wages reported by employers in other states that are many miles away are attributable to a single SSI recipient or to other individuals misusing the recipient’s SSN. After determining the extent to which individuals had wages reported from outside their state, we analyzed the employers that reported those wages. As another sign of possible SSN misuse, our analysis identified nine employers who reported wages for 15 or more SSI recipients during the same quarter that, according to SSA’s records, lived in different states from the employer’s location. For example, as shown in figure 3 below, one meat plant with a single Indiana location reported wages for 22 SSI recipients whose SSA records indicated that they lived in other states that were many miles away: namely California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas.