Elon Musk, the billionaire main a authorities effectivity initiative, has for weeks made broad and unsupported claims of rampant fraud in federal spending.

In a collection of interviews on conservative podcasts and tv interviews, Mr. Musk has defended makes an attempt by the so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity to focus on standard entitlement applications like Social Safety and entry delicate cost methods with a collection of inaccurate claims. A consultant for DOGE didn’t reply when requested for proof of Mr. Musk’s claims.

Right here’s a fact-check.

WHAT WAS SAID

This lacks proof. Unauthorized immigrants will not be eligible for many federal security internet advantages, and there’s no proof to counsel they’re committing fraud en masse to acquire them. In reality, various impartial and authorities analyses counsel that the alternative is true: Unauthorized immigrants pay extra into Social Safety and Medicare than they obtain in federal advantages.

Federal regulation bars unauthorized immigrants from receiving Social Safety or Medicare advantages, in addition to most different federal authorities help applications, however they do pay taxes. (Immigrants, together with those that these obtained asylum, refugee or humanitarian parole standing, could also be eligible for more programs.)

In a 2013 report, the Social Safety Administration estimated that 3.1 million unauthorized immigrants had been working and paying Social Safety taxes, contributing about $12 billion to the trust in 2010 and about $100 billion over a decade. A 2016 research estimated that unauthorized immigrants contributed about $35.1 billion to Medicare from 2000 to 2011.

A 2024 study from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning suppose tank, discovered that unauthorized immigrants paid almost $100 billion in federal, state and native taxes in 2022, together with $25.7 billion in Social Safety taxes and $6.4 billion Medicare taxes.

And the Congressional Funds Workplace estimated last summer that the surge in immigration from the 2021 to 2026 interval would truly lower the federal deficit by $0.9 trillion over a decade. The finances workplace projected that these latest migrants and their youngsters will obtain $0.3 trillion in federal advantages, however they may greater than offset these prices by bolstering tax revenues by $1.2 trillion. (The $0.3 trillion, too, was an estimate of advantages these immigrants legally qualify for, not fraud.)

There isn’t any proof of mass entitlement fraud perpetrated by unauthorized immigrants. A 2018 report from the Niskanen Middle, a libertarian-leaning suppose tank, noted that since 2011, there have been fewer than 100 annual prosecutions of unauthorized immigrants the place fraud was the main cost.

The Middle for Immigration Research, which helps lowering immigration, has stated that unauthorized immigrants “unambiguously” profit Social Safety and Medicare, however legalizing their standing would hurt each applications. The group has also argued that one group legally receiving some advantages — immigrants fleeing troubled nations granted humanitarian parole, a temporary legal status — would “for all intents and functions be unlawful aliens, had been it not for the abusive parole practices of the Biden administration.” This can be a critique of coverage selections although, not an accusation of entitlement fraud.

What Was Stated

That is deceptive. Mr. Musk repeatedly misrepresented the findings of that 2024 report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace.

The watchdog company projected that the federal government misplaced between $233 billion and $521 billion yearly to detected and undetected fraud throughout the 2018 to 2022 fiscal years. The estimate additionally was governmentwide, and never restricted to fraud in entitlement applications or fraud dedicated utilizing false Social Safety numbers. The report gave a number of different examples of fraud like falsifying invoices, trafficking advantages and overbilling.

It was unclear whether or not Mr. Musk was arguing that the report was issued underneath the Biden administration or if all of the fraud occurred underneath the Biden administration, however the time coated within the report included about three years underneath the Trump administration and over a 12 months and a half underneath the Biden administration.

The accountability workplace also estimated this month that $162 billion in improper funds — which incorporates however is just not restricted to fraud — from 16 federal companies that reported knowledge. Medicare and Medicaid had been, by far, the most important sources, totaling some $85 billion in improper funds. The overwhelming majority of these improper funds occurred due to inadequate documentation or billing that didn’t reveal adequate medical necessity, in accordance with each the accountability office and inspector general’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services. Neither watchdog company talked about the misuse of Social Safety numbers.

Federal companies and watchdog organizations have lengthy acknowledged that Social Safety quantity misuse and identification theft are severe points. However credible estimates of fraud dedicated utilizing pretend or stolen Social Safety numbers don’t come near half a trillion {dollars} yearly or 10 p.c of expenditures, as Mr. Musk asserted.

A assessment of a random pattern of identification verification transactions for presidency applications in 2024 by TransUnion, a serious credit score bureau, discovered that 2 p.c of transactions concerned a Social Safety quantity beforehand used for a loss of life profit, 0.4 p.c concerned a quantity with an uncommon variety of inquiries for a short while span and 0.1 p.c concerned an identification flagged as a excessive artificial identification danger, in accordance with Greg Schlichter, the director of analysis and consulting for TransUnion’s public providers sector.

This quantities to “fraud danger publicity of tons of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} for some applications,” Mr. Schlichter stated, including that entitlement applications had been extra vulnerable to fraud and authorities companies might institute extra sturdy fraud detection with out sacrificing entry to advantages.

A February report from the Social Safety Administration’s inspector basic’s workplace discovered that the company issued $32.8 billion in overpayments from the 2020 to 2023 fiscal 12 months, together with $13.6 billion from the primary Social Safety program and $19.2 billion from the supplemental program for some older, blind and disabled folks. About 4 p.c of overpayments in the primary program had been issued after loss of life and three p.c for individuals who obtained advantages fraudulently or weren’t Americans. (Sure immigrants, corresponding to lawfully admitted everlasting residents, are eligible for some Social Security benefits, however the company stops these funds if the immigrant lives overseas for greater than six months.)

And individually the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a panel of inspectors basic, estimated in 2023 that almost 70,000 questionable Social Safety numbers had been used to acquire stimulus advantages totaling greater than $5.4 billion.

What Was Stated

That is deceptive. A federal choose in New York in late February barred members of the DOGE team from regaining entry to the delicate cost methods operated by the Treasury Division’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, however Mr. Musk continues to criticize a kind of methods.

The Cost Automation Supervisor, or PAM, is a cost processing system developed over a decade ago to streamline funds throughout the federal government and standardize fiscal knowledge to supply higher transparency. It points checks and deposits for the overwhelming majority of federal funds together with Social Safety advantages and tax refunds. PAM processed over $4.7 trillion in funds within the 2024 fiscal 12 months.

Authorities watchdogs have discovered points with cost traceability throughout the federal authorities, and particular ledger traces in PAM might not embrace the extent of element Mr. Musk is requesting. However he’s mistaken that these funds quantity to “untraceable clean checks” and Mr. Musk has supplied no proof that omitting these particulars has precipitated $100 billion yearly in improper funds.

Opposite to Mr. Musk’s claims, PAM requires agencies to submit cost knowledge in a regular format and embrace a “Treasury Account Image” and “Enterprise Occasion Kind Code,” which determine a person appropriation or fund account.

In reality, DOGE and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service used TAS codes to determine overseas assist funds for the State Division to assessment and halt underneath Mr. Trump’s broad funding freeze, in accordance with a February sworn statement from Tom Krause, a software program government just lately appointed as an assistant secretary on the Treasury Division.

Mr. Krause, an ally of Mr. Musk’s, additionally stated that many Kind B funds — which he described as “decrease worth, increased volumes” ones — processed in PAM are lacking TAS codes. Mr. Krause famous that this has hampered the accuracy of the Treasury Division’s bookkeeping. (The Treasury Division didn’t reply to a request for extra element.)

Kind B funds are made in bulk, and particulars are supplied for the whole batch, not for particular person funds, according to the Treasury Department.

The Authorities Accountability Workplace, in annual audits, has recognized “vital” deficiencies in how the federal government retains monitor of those funds. Some federal companies submit identification codes at a abstract degree, file transactions with out the codes in their very own ledgers, or revise knowledge after submitting — all of which make it tough for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service to trace particular person funds throughout completely different authorities ledgers.

There was progress in enhancing governmentwide traceability of particular person funds, the accountability office said in its latest report, and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service has stated it hoped to enact a uniform means of recording funds by the 2029 fiscal 12 months, however would want the cooperation of different companies to take action.

Neither the Authorities Accountability Workplace nor Mr. Krause has estimated that lack of reporting element in PAM results in $100 billion yearly in improper funds.

Nathan Tankus, an skilled on cost methods who has reported extensively on the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, questioned Mr. Musk’s determine. “The one option to get to $100 billion is to facilitate impoundment” and provides PAM the ability to cease congressionally appropriated funds, he stated.

“However that’s not the aim of the system,” Mr. Tankus stated. “We would like it to course of funds so long as they’re legitimate funds approved by Congress, similar to we would like our financial institution to course of our funds on the native grocery story with out going, ‘Huh? Why are you spending $200 on the grocery retailer? What about $150 as an alternative?’”

What Was Stated

Mr. Musk: “For instance, like the easy survey that was actually a 10-question survey that you would do with Survey Monkey that prices you about $10,000, the federal government was being charged virtually a billion for that.”

Bret Baier, Fox Information host: “For only a survey?”

Mr. Musk: “A billion {dollars} for a easy, on-line survey: Do you just like the Nationwide Park?”
— in an interview on Fox News on Thursday

This lacks proof. Later within the interview, one other member of the DOGE group specified that Mr. Musk was referring to $830 million in spending recognized together with the Inside Division. This seems to have been a reference to the purported dissolution of a directorate within the Inside Division, not only one 10-question survey.

In a social media publish this month, DOGE wrote that the Interior Department was dissolving its Federal Consulting Group, a little-known directorate that since 1987 has supplied and procured consulting, government teaching and survey providers for different companies. In line with the publish, the group had brokered a $75 million contract to design satisfaction surveys, and DOGE stated it had canceled $830 million in unsigned “related contracts” to be awarded by the group.

However there is no such thing as a single contract for one 10-question internet survey value $75 million, not to mention $830 million or $1 billion listed in DOGE’s own list of terminated contracts as of Monday.

The most important contracts for surveys altered or canceled on DOGE’s web site had been a Labor Division contract to survey agricultural workers (potential worth of $32 million), a Division of Veterans Affairs contract for customer service surveys of medical incapacity exams (worth of as much as $20 million) and one other Veterans Affairs contract for a affected person satisfaction survey (worth as much as $16 million).