Federal Workers Pocket Fraudulent Social Security Disability Payments

Some 1,500 federal employees "have wrongly received benefits," according to The Government Accountability Office. So, we know that the real number is probably at least 6,000. It's been going on for a long time.

Federal Workers get Fraudulent Disability Payments

"Our case studies ... confirmed some examples in which individuals received SSA disability payments that they were not entitled to receive," the GAO said in a letter to Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del.; John McCain, R-Ariz.; and Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Some of the payments were attributed to fraud, others to "administrative error," according to the report. The GAO found that the Social Security Administration does not use its own automated system to flag workers who may be earning too much income to qualify for benefits.

"SSA's internal controls did not prevent improper and fraudulent payments," the GAO said.  The report also found thousands of commercial drivers and transportation business owners who may be skirting the law. It focused in part on federal , estimating that 1,500 workers were receiving about $1.7 million monthly. Of them, one-quarter were U.S. Postal Service employees and 16 percent were Defense Department civilians. 

Get this! Do we really think there is only one woman getting paid for "angst?"

According to the report, the TSA employee started receiving disability benefits in 1995 for "mood and anxiety disorders." But she started full-time work in 2003 and earned as much as $50,000; the income cap after which disability payments are supposed to stop was $940 per month in 2008. 

So what happens now? Can the taxpayers get their money back?