The latest numbers by the Government Accountability Office’ (GAO) once again finds the federal government spent billions on improper payments.
Just released, the new 2023 data shows errors that federal departments made in a tune of $236 billion. Improper payments fall into four categories: overpayments, underpayments, technically improper payments, and unknown payments. And these payment estimates have not been adjusted for inflation.
The GAO audit found 16 federal programs where these errors occurred and 74% of the improper payments were overpayments in welfare, unemployment compensation, Medicare and left over Federal covid funds.
Others included billions of overpayments in Medicare under Health and Human Services. The Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance – Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Department of the Treasury’s Earned Income Tax Credit, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The GAO admits their audits underestimate a larger number of overpayments because not all the federal agencies provided information on improper payments.
Those were HUD, Department of Defense, Labor, HHS, and SBA.
For the last few years, watchdog groups like Open the Books have detailed how improper payments have taken place since for over 20 years.
There were $35 billion in improper payments in 2003. In 2009, that number went up over a $100 billion. Between 2017 to 2021, it increased from $141 billion to the $281 billion.
The numbers have declined some because of pandemic funding expired in 2022. But the numbers are much higher pre-covid.
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