What legislative changes has Congress considered to improve data sharing between SSA and other agencies to reduce improper payments?
Executive summary
Congress and the executive branch have pursued a mix of statutory fixes, enacted data-access laws, and agency-focused proposals aimed at tightening data sharing to reduce improper payments—ranging from codifying state access to federal databases to broader mandates that ease interagency exchange—while oversight reports and litigation have pushed for additional legislative authority and funding [1] [2] [3]. Several enacted laws in 2024–2025 and pending proposals would streamline data flows or remove the need for certain data collection that historically produced errors, but gaps remain in authority, funding, privacy safeguards, and implementation that continue to motivate further congressional consideration [4] [5] [6].
1. Congress has codified targeted data-access rights and created new mandates for agency cooperation
In 2024 Congress enacted the Congressional Budget Office Data Sharing Act (H.R.7032), which requires executive-branch agencies to furnish material to the CBO as necessary for its duties and mandates a confidentiality standard for that sharing, a narrow but concrete example of statutory expansion of data access across agencies [2]. Separately, other 118th‑Congress measures signed into law—such as the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act and the SHARE IT Act—aim to modernize IT practices and harmonize source code reuse across agencies, reforms that implicitly lower technical barriers to secure data exchange even if they are not expressed solely as payment‑integrity statutes [4].
2. The Administration’s FY2024 package pressed Congress to codify specific matching rules for program integrity
The Administration’s budget proposal included a “package of legislative reforms” to prevent and recover improper payments that would codify state requirements to use federal data matches—specifically the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH) and SSA’s Prisoner Update Processing System (PUPS)—to verify unemployment insurance eligibility and reduce erroneous payments, signaling an executive push for statutory mandates that bind state agencies into routine federal data checks [1].
3. Proposals to expand private-sector data use and payroll reporting intersect with congressional options
Treasury’s suggestion to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to authorize the Department of the Treasury (or designated entities) to use data aggregators and credit-reporting‑style services for income and residency verification reflects a legislative option under consideration: allowing government programs to tap commercial data streams to spot improper payments in SNAP, Medicaid, or UI—an approach that Congress may authorize or limit through statute and privacy guardrails [1]. Meanwhile, SSA’s Payroll Information Exchange (PIE) proposal—an agency rule allowing payroll providers to transmit wage data to SSA with individual authorization—is an administrative route to better data but one that overlaps with congressional interest in legislating broader, uniform authorities [6] [7].
4. Legislative fixes can also reduce data collection burdens that cause errors
Not all congressional action is about more data: the Social Security Fairness Act repealed provisions that forced SSA to collect noncovered pension data for GPO/WEP calculations, thereby removing a root cause of some calculation errors and overpayments and illustrating a different legislative strategy—simplify requirements so fewer cross‑agency data pulls are needed [5].
5. Oversight reports and prior bills push for funding, mandates, and state incentives to improve data sharing
CRS and OIG reporting have framed improper payments as a persistent, partly data‑access problem and recommended legislative changes, automation, systems modernization, and funding; OIG explicitly warned that without better access to data and new legislative or policy changes, improper payments will persist, pressuring Congress to consider statutory remedies and appropriations for technical solutions [8] [9] [3]. Earlier bills—like the “Stopping Improper Payments to Deceased People Act”—illustrate targeted proposals to incentivize states to share death records by funding state costs, a legislative tactic Congress has used to improve national data flows [10].
6. Political and privacy tradeoffs frame what Congress will do next
These proposals reveal competing agendas: program-integrity advocates favor broad data sharing and commercial data use to reduce losses [1], privacy advocates and some lawmakers push for strict consent and limits (as seen in SSA’s PIE relying on individual authorization) [6] [7], and agencies warn that statutory authority and funding gaps hamper implementation [3]. Several pending or recently cosponsored bills—such as the SSA Reform Act and other Social Security-related measures—signal continued legislative attention but often lack public detail on data‑sharing specifics, leaving implementation choices to future congressional action [11].