U.S. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) said on Tuesday that legislation titled the Standard Data Act would be introduced soon. The bill aims to improve the quality and integrity of government statistical data and cut down on fraud, wasteful spending and abuse through the use of that data.
In essence, the Standard Data Act would establish consistent restrictions and requirements regarding the formatting and content of data collected and studied by several human-services programs within the federal government.
The bill is a response to a recent U.S. inspector general report indicating that nearly 6.5 million Social Security numbers issued before 1903 belonged to accounts that were still active. That would mean that each of those individuals would be over 112 years old. In contrast, the Gerontology Research Group said there are only 48 people on the entire planet who are over the age of 112 – and only 14 of those live in the U.S.
“Obviously, there are not 6.5 million people in the U.S. over the age of 112,” Reed said. “In fact, there are only 14. It’s not fair to see hard-working taxpayers’ hard-earned money go down the drain because of lax government recordkeeping, especially when it opens the door to fraud and abuse.”
“The Internal Revenue Service, Department of Defense, Office of Personnel Management, Department of Veterans Affairs, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and other federal agencies distribute billions in federal benefits every year,” the inspector general’s report said. “All of these agencies check SSA data to ensure the Social Security Numbers (SSNs) being used to claim benefits actually belong to living individuals. When there are gaps in this data, scammers can use the SSNs of dead individuals to fraudulently obtain government benefits.”
“Hard-working taxpayers deserve better and should know that I care about their money and that they are getting fair value in return,” Reed said.
Language in the Standard Data Act goes beyond just the cleaning up of data formats. The bill is the first step in a deeper process of reform that will allow the same data to be used for multiple programs within the federal government, flowing efficiently between the administrators of each program and working to prevent duplication of services. Programs that would eventually be governed under this bill include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, child care, enforcement of child support, foster care, adoption, Supplemental Security Income and unemployment insurance.