SSA OIG flags FY2025 SSI payment-integrity reporting gaps—what follows next

On July 14, 2026, the Social Security Administration’s Office of Inspector General issued an audit of whether SSA complied with the Payment Integrity Information Act (PIIA) of 2019 for Fiscal Year 2025 reporting materials.

The audit’s headline finding: SSA met all 10 PIIA reporting requirements for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI), but it met 8 of 10 PIIA reporting requirements for Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—and fell short on two SSI-specific requirements.

What the audit reviewed (and what it didn’t)

The OIG’s objective was narrow and procedural: it assessed whether SSA met the PIIA requirements in its FY2025 Agency Financial Report and accompanying materials. In other words, this is a compliance and documentation review tied to annual improper-payment reporting rules—not a case-by-case decision that identifies which individuals received improper SSI payments in FY2025.

The two SSI-specific PIIA compliance gaps

• No demonstration of payment-integrity improvement / failure to reach a “tolerable” rate threshold: the audit states SSA did not demonstrate improvements in payment integrity or reach a tolerable improper payment and unknown payment rate for SSI.
• Missing an SSI estimate below 10%: the audit states SSA did not report an SSI improper-payment/unknown-payment estimate of less than 10 percent.

SSA also described, in the audit materials, leading causes of SSI overpayments it identified—financial accounts, wages, and in-kind support and maintenance.

What SSA met: OASI and DI

For OASI and DI, the OIG audit says SSA complied with all 10 PIIA reporting requirements for FY2025. That matters because it keeps the watchdog finding focused: the reported noncompliance is SSI- and requirement-specific, not described as a blanket failure across every Social Security payment stream.

Why PIIA compliance hinges on thresholds

PIIA plugs into the improper-payment estimation and reporting framework Congress set out in 31 U.S.C. § 3352. The approach links (1) how agencies estimate improper payments and handle payments with insufficient documentation (often treated as improper/unknown) to (2) what oversight expects agencies to document about improvement efforts and whether results meet threshold-based expectations.

What to watch next for SSI beneficiaries and taxpayers

The OIG said it was not making new recommendations in this report. But it also reiterated that two prior OIG recommendations remained unimplemented as of the report date: (1) a study intended to expand Access to Financial Institutions searches between SSI initial applications and later eligibility redeterminations, and (2) completion of a Foreign Travel Data exchange project.

For SSI recipients and families, the practical takeaway is about oversight follow-through: watchdog scrutiny can translate into pressure for corrective reporting and systems improvements, even though this audit itself is not a direct, individual-benefit stoplight.

Bottom line

SSA’s FY2025 improper-payment reporting for PIIA compliance passed most checks for OASI/DI, but the OIG says SSA missed two SSI-specific requirements tied to (1) demonstrating improvement and reaching a “tolerable” improper/unknown-payment rate and (2) reporting an SSI estimate below 10%.

Sources

• Oversight.gov — SSA OIG PIIA compliance audit (FY2025), report 152601 (issued July 14, 2026)
• SSA Office of Inspector General — PDF: PIIA compliance in FY2025 (report 152601)
• U.S. Code (31 U.S.C. § 3352) — improper-payment estimates and reduction reporting