The U.S. government writes a lot of checks. A lot of them. But occasionally, some of those checks have a problem - they are addressed to people who are no longer alive.
That is where a new verification system comes in. After President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting fraud, waste, and abuse, the Treasury Department put a new process in place to check payments before they go out. And it is already catching things.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called the results a strong start. "So far, we've saved about $100 million, payments that didn't go to deceased people," he said on "Mornings with Maria."
The key is permanent access to the Social Security Administration's Full Death Master File. That is exactly what it sounds like - a database of people who have died. The Treasury's Bureau of the Fiscal Service can now check every payment against that list before sending money out.
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This sounds obvious, but it was not always possible. Congress had initially granted the Treasury temporary access to this data for three years through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. That changed in February, when the "Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act" made the authority permanent, and President Trump signed it into law.
Bessent emphasized that stopping money before it leaves is critical. Once a payment goes out the door, getting it back is nearly impossible. "In the Biden administration, HHS got rid of about 50 or 60 of the people who were charged with monitoring fraud," he said. "Stopping it at the source here is our goal."
The nearly $99 million caught so far is part of a much larger problem. The Government Accountability Office estimates that improper payments could reach $500 billion, or about 1.66% of GDP.
Bessent thinks the new system can stop up to $350 million in payments to deceased people by the end of this year alone.
"The GAO estimates this number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66% of GDP," Bessent said. "That could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services, and this is just the start."
You are not getting checks meant for dead people. That is good. But this story matters because it touches on something bigger.
When the government wastes money - even by accident - that is taxpayer money that could have gone elsewhere. Every dollar lost to improper payments is a dollar that either adds to the federal debt or could have been spent on something useful. A system that saves hundreds of millions - or billions - of dollars a year signals a shift in focus. When the government starts plugging leaks, even small ones, it suggests more attention is being paid to where the money actually goes.
For now, the system is just getting started. The Treasury says it expects to keep catching payments before they land in the wrong hands.
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