What was the total improper payments estimate for Social Security in the most recent fiscal year?
Executive summary
The most recent multi-year estimate cited by the SSA Office of Inspector General places Social Security improper payments at nearly $72 billion for fiscal years 2015–2022; that OIG report and contemporaneous press coverage note improper payments were “most of which were overpayments” and that uncollected overpayments stood at $23 billion at the end of FY 2023 [1]. Available sources do not provide a single-line “total improper payments” figure for fiscal year 2024 or FY 2025; they instead report FY 2023 program rates for SSI (10.62 percent, about $6.5 billion) and aggregate multiyear totals through FY 2022 (nearly $72 billion) [2] [1].
1. What the official audits say: the near-$72 billion multiyear finding
The Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General’s August 2024 reporting aggregates the agency’s improper-payment problem across FYs 2015–2022 and concludes SSA estimated nearly $72 billion in improper payments during that period, “most of which were overpayments,” while noting that improper payments were less than 1 percent of total benefits in that window [1]. That same OIG release stresses the persistence of the problem and catalogs dozens of unimplemented recommendations to reduce errors [1].
2. The most recent single-year data the sources include: SSI’s FY 2023 rate
For a single program-year snapshot, the OIG notes the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) improper-payment rate rose to 10.62 percent in FY 2023 — roughly $6.5 billion in improper SSI payments — up from 9.41 percent (about $5.3 billion) in FY 2019 [2]. The OIG frames SSI as a trouble spot where SSA “did not demonstrate improvements to payment integrity” sufficient to meet tolerable-error thresholds [2].
3. Where reporting and agency pages are quiet: FY 2024 and FY 2025 totals
Available sources do not provide a consolidated total improper‑payments estimate for FY 2024 or FY 2025. SSA public materials and budget documents referenced here discuss payment-accuracy efforts, projected benefit outlays (over $1.5 trillion in FY 2024 and about $1.6 trillion in 2025), and program integrity initiatives but do not publish a single FY 2024 improper‑payments dollar total in the materials cited [2] [3] [4]. The agency’s “historical” improper payments page points readers to government-wide paymentaccuracy.gov for detailed annual reporting but notes it stopped posting some data locally beginning FY 2021 [5].
4. Media summaries: context, not replacements for audit tables
Major outlets summarized the OIG’s multiyear findings when reporting policy changes in 2025: USA Today and Newsweek cite the nearly $72 billion figure for FYs 2015–2022 and state that improper payments represented under 1 percent of total benefits in that period [6] [7] [8]. These news stories use the OIG aggregation to contextualize changes such as modified overpayment recovery policies, but they do not present a discrete FY 2024 improper-payments total [6] [7].
5. Recovery balances and program impact: $23 billion uncollected as of FY 2023
The OIG reported that at the end of FY 2023 SSA had an uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion, underscoring that while SSA recovers many improper payments, a substantial balance remains outstanding [1]. That figure appears alongside the multiyear improper-payment estimate as evidence of the fiscal exposure the OIG scrutinizes [1].
6. Why a single, “most recent fiscal year” number is hard to find
Sources here show SSA and OIG reporting mixes program-specific rates (e.g., SSI FY 2023) with multiyear aggregates and administrative recovery statistics; publicly available single-year improper-payment totals for FY 2024 or FY 2025 are not in the documents provided [2] [5] [1]. The agency’s practice of posting some data on paymentaccuracy.gov and consolidating other information in budget documents further fragments where to look [5] [4].
7. Competing perspectives and policy implications
The OIG frames the numbers as evidence SSA must implement unfulfilled recommendations to curb improper payments; that watchdog posture contrasts with SSA communications emphasizing new operational reforms (e.g., payroll data exchanges, notice simplifications) and changes to overpayment recovery rules aimed at balancing accuracy and beneficiary hardship [2] [9] [10]. News outlets use the OIG’s multiyear total to justify more aggressive recovery and integrity steps but also note the small share of total benefits the errors represent, under 1 percent in the cited window [6] [7] [8].
8. Bottom line for your question
If you mean “most recent fiscal year” as FY 2023, the SSI program’s improper payments were about $6.5 billion (10.62 percent) and SSA’s OIG reported an overall uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion at end-FY 2023; for a consolidated total improper‑payments dollar figure, the most-cited authoritative aggregate is “nearly $72 billion” for FYs 2015–2022 [2] [1]. Available sources do not provide a single definitive dollar total labeled “improper payments in FY 2024” or “FY 2025” within the provided documents [2] [3] [4].