A recent report from the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General reveled errors in distribution as a result of flaws within the manual computation process.  The errors resulted in over 30,000 people being overpaid or underpaid between July of 2006 and June of 2008: over 14,000 people were overpaid by $7.7 million and over 18,000 people were underpaid by $6.7 million.

The review of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Supplemental Security Income (SSI) process for manual computation found many errors occur frequently due to lack of adhering to protocol. Often times the calculations are not reviewed by co-workers prior to posting, which is required by SSA policy and procedure .

According to the report:

• Eighty-two SSI recipients had at least 1 manual computation that was not calculated accurately. Because of inaccurate calculations, we project that 14,393 recipients in our population were overpaid approximately $7.7 million, and 18,453 recipients were underpaid approximately $6.7 million.
• Eighteen SSI recipients already receiving SSI payments based on an existing manual computation did not have a new manually computed SSI payment amount when a subsequent event occurred—such as a change in resources. Therefore, we project that 2,952 recipients in our population were overpaid approximately $968,000, and 3,691 recipients were underpaid approximately $608,000.