Treasury Can’t Verify Social Security Numbers for Most Programs

Host Greg Bishop talks with The Center Square's Brett Rowland about Treasury's Do Not Pay program. It screens federal payments against federal databases to confirm that recipients are real, alive and eligible. It has been required by law for more than a decade, but until last year only about 4% of federal programs had access; Treasury has since expanded that to 99%. In fiscal 2026, Treasury screened $3.7 trillion in payments and stopped about 13,500, worth about $175 million. Improper payments run about $186 billion a year. Treasury says the law hasn’t caught up with the technology. It can verify Social Security numbers for only 11 federal programs, limited mainly to health and income maintenance programs, and it can’t check ID numbers against IRS records. Treasury says banks have more identity verification access than federal programs. A bill from U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky would have expanded that access, but the key provisions were stripped from the House version after House Ways and Means objected over jurisdiction in April.