The SSI program is authorized by title XVI of the Social Security Act. To qualify for SSI, an individual must meet financial eligibility and age or disability criteria. Generally, SSA determines an applicant’s age and financial eligibility; the state’s Disability Determination Service determines an applicant’s initial medical eligibility. The maximum monthly benefit in 1995 was $458 per month for an individual, increased to $470 in 1996. An individual is ineligible for SSI in any given month if throughout that month he or she is an inmate of a public institution (42 U.S.C. 1382 (e)(1)(A)). The title XVI regulation defines an inmate of a public institution as a person who can receive substantially all of his or her food and shelter while living in a public institution. SSA operating instructions provide that a prison is a public institution. SSI recipients may receive their payments in one of several ways: (1) SSI checks can be mailed to them at their residences or, in some cases, to post office boxes; (2) SSI checks can be direct-deposited into recipients’ checking or savings accounts; or (3) SSI checks can be sent to recipients’ representative payees—individuals or organizations that receive checks on behalf of SSI recipients who are unable to manage their own affairs (including legally incompetent people, alcoholics, drug addicts, and children). A representative payee is responsible for dispensing the SSI payment in a manner that is in the best interest of the recipient. Many events can affect a recipient’s eligibility or payment amount. SSA requires that recipients voluntarily report these events and also monitors and periodically reviews recipients’ financial eligibility. SSI recipients are responsible for reporting information that may affect their eligibility or payment amounts. If the recipient has a representative payee, the payee is responsible for reporting such information to SSA. Significant events to be reported include a change in income, resources, marital status, or living arrangements, such as admission to or discharge from a public institution. A redetermination is a review of financial eligibility factors to ensure that recipients are still eligible for SSI and receiving the correct payment. A redetermination addresses financial eligibility factors that can change frequently, such as income, resources, and living arrangements. Redeterminations are either scheduled or unscheduled. They are conducted—by mail, telephone, or face-to-face interview—at least every 6 years, but may be conducted more frequently if SSA determines that changes in eligibility or erroneous payments are likely. The redetermination process includes a question about whether the recipient spent a full calendar month in a hospital, nursing home, other institution, or any place other than the recipient’s normal residence. Since the SSI program was established, SSA has recognized the potential for erroneous payments if SSI recipients become residents of public institutions, including state and federal prisons and county and local jails. SSA headquarters has established computer-matching agreements with state prison systems and the federal Bureau of Prisons. Under these agreements, the participating states and the Bureau can regularly provide automated prisoner information to SSA. SSA matches the information against its payment records to identify SSI recipients incarcerated in state and federal prisons. According to information provided by SSA, the process of matching prisoner information against the SSI payment records is a cost-effective way to identify SSI recipients who are in prison. However, to succeed, SSA determined it is essential that field offices work closely with public institutions, both county and local, to facilitate the flow of information concerning the SSI population. Accordingly, SSA has, for years, instructed its field offices to (1) maintain regular contact (for example, regular visits) with prisons in their areas and (2) establish procedures for promptly obtaining information on events, such as admissions and discharges, that affect SSI eligibility and payment determinations. On May 24, 1996, the Commissioner of Social Security sent draft legislation to the Congress. This proposed legislation is designed to promote timely carrying out of SSI provisions requiring cessation of payments to prisoners. The legislation would authorize the Commissioner to enter into agreements with willing state and local “correctional facilities.” Under these agreements, the Commissioner would pay the facility for each report of a newly admitted inmate who has been a Social Security or SSI beneficiary but is not, as a prisoner, entitled to payments. In August, the Congress passed The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The act authorizes the Commissioner of SSA to enter into agreements with interested institutions. Under these agreements, the institutions would provide SSA with the names, SSNs, and other information about their inmates. SSA, subject to the terms of the agreements, would pay an institution for each inmate who SSA subsequently determines is ineligible for SSI. The act specifies, however, that the institution’s primary purpose must be to confine individuals for offenses punishable by confinement for more than 1 year. This 1-year requirement would seem to preclude SSA from entering into agreements with, as well as making payments to, county and local jails, which generally incarcerate prisoners for shorter periods. Overall, in the jail systems we reviewed, we detected a total of $5 million in erroneous SSI payments to prisoners. This includes $3.9 million to 2,343 current prisoners in 12 jail systems and $1.1 million to 615 former prisoners in 2 jail systems. Typically, an erroneous payment continued for 6 months or less and totalled about $1,700. SSA was unaware that many of these payments had occurred. SSA had made erroneous payments to 2,343 prisoners, who were incarcerated in the 12 jail systems at the time of our work. These 2,343 prisoners represent about 4 percent of the prisoners with verified SSNs in these jail systems. As shown in table 1, SSA made payments to some prisoners in each of the 12 jail systems. The percentage of prisoners who received SSI payments differed somewhat among these jail systems, ranging from 2 to about 7.7 percent. In addition, there were 926 SSI recipients in jail at the time of our review who had not yet been there for 1 full calendar month. Collectively, these 926 prisoners were being paid about $387,000 a month. To the extent these prisoners remain in jail for at least 1 calendar month and SSA remains unaware of their incarceration, SSI payments made after a full month of incarceration would be erroneous. In the 12 systems we reviewed, as of the date we reviewed each system, we estimate that SSA paid $3,888,471 to the 2,343 current prisoners (see table 2). The average amount paid to an individual prisoner varies among the jail systems, but the overall average is approximately $1,700. Some payments are much larger. Erroneous payments to individual prisoners ranged from less than $100 to over $17,000. We determined that 136 prisoners received in excess of $5,000, including 19 who received more than $10,000. The percentage of current prisoners by range is shown in figure 1. Large erroneous payments to prisoners occurred because SSA paid some of them for long periods of time. For example, one SSI recipient was arrested on June 27, 1993, and was still in jail on November 30, 1995. SSA paid this prisoner monthly for this entire period. The erroneous monthly payments totaled about $13,000. As of November 30, 1995, this SSI recipient was still in jail and SSA was continuing to pay him. We determined that 85 percent of the 2,343 current prisoners had received erroneous payments for a period of 6 months or less, at the time of our review. However, some were paid for longer periods. We found a total of 94 prisoners that had been paid for more than 1 year, including 13 who were paid for more than 2 years. The range of months during which payments continued is shown in table 3. The erroneous payments to current prisoners are likely to increase. Based on a review of SSA’s records, we estimate that at the time of our review, SSA was unaware that 1,570 of the 2,343 recipients were in jail. SSA therefore continued to erroneously pay them. But SSA had stopped paying the remaining 773 and, for some of them, established an overpayment. We obtained information, from two jail systems, for 15,998 former prisoners who were released from jail between January 1 and June 30, 1995. We determined that of these former prisoners, 615 (3.8 percent) received SSI while incarcerated. In total, these former prisoners received about $1.1 million in payments. The number of former prisoners, total erroneous payments, and average amount to individual prisoner by jail system are shown in table 4. Included in the count of 419 former prisoners in Cook County are 17 who were also in our population of current prisoners. This indicates that these 17 were in prison and received SSI payments on at least two occasions. In Cook County, where we had data for both current and former prisoners, erroneous payments to former prisoners were higher. In that county, about 73 percent of the former prisoners were erroneously paid $1,000 or more, compared with 48 percent of the current prisoners. The difference is predictable because former prisoners have completed their time in the county or local jail and current prisoners have not. In Wayne County, where we only had data on former prisoners, 38 percent of the former prisoners were erroneously paid $1,000 or more. Based on a review of SSA’s records, we estimate that SSA is unaware that it erroneously paid 454 (74 percent) of the 615 former prisoners (see table 5). As of December 1995, SSA was making SSI payments to 340 of the 454 former prisoners. However, SSA was not recovering these payments by withholding a portion of the current payments.