Treasury Intercepted $99 Million in Federal Payments to Deceased People, Bessent Says

Some 885 million payments totaling around $2.77 trillion were screened by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testifies before the Senate Committee on Appropriations in Washington on June 3, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that his department screened hundreds of millions of federal payments and blocked nearly $100 million that was being sent to deceased people as part of a government-wide anti-fraud effort.

“Treasury has delivered on a key promise of President Trump’s mandate to stop improper payments and fraud before money leaves the Treasury, and strengthen the integrity of the federal payment system,” Bessent said in a statement, referring to an initiative that relies on Treasury access to the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) death master list.

The Treasury screened some 885 million payments totaling around $2.77 trillion as part of a new verification process, his department said. Around 4,900 payments worth $99 million “were returned to the originating federal agencies for review before any funds were disbursed,” a Treasury news release said.

While speaking to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on July 21, Bessent said his office believes there is “up to $350 million that we can stop before the end of this year” in line with Vice President JD Vance’s anti-fraud task force that was initiated earlier this year.

“This number might be up to $500 billion, which is about 1.66 percent of GDP,“ he added, referring to potentially improper payments that could be blocked. ”So that could go a long way towards paying down the debt, providing more services. And this is just the start.”

In February, Trump signed the “Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act,” which authorizes the Treasury Department to access the Social Security death master file to evaluate payments.

Access was initially granted on a temporary, three-year basis through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed in 2021, according to the Treasury.

In March, Trump signed an order to establish the Vance-led task force to investigate the federal government’s “vast benefits system for citizens in need that includes housing, food, medical care, cash assistance, and more” while stating that some states have not implemented “basic fraud controls.”

Vance in May said that the fraud task force has located and “exposed billions of dollars in benefits that have been stolen from the American people” in two months. He cited fraudulent payments sent out through small business loans, Medicaid reimbursements, and COVID-19-related relief programs.

In early 2025, the Elon Musk-associated Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established to look into fraud, waste, and abuse across the federal government. DOGE recently announced that its mandate ended on July 4.

At one point, DOGE staffers were investigating Social Security payments and records for possible fraud. DOGE’s access was the subject of numerous lawsuits before the Supreme Court ruled in DOGE’s favor last summer. The task force in May 2025 said it performed a “major cleanup” of the agency’s records, finding that 12.3 million people in the system were marked as “deceased.”

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request on Tuesday for additional comment on the figures that Bessent provided.

Bessent added in a statement that the department will “continue efforts to modernize the federal payment system, strengthen safeguards against fraud and improper payments, and protect taxpayer dollars.”