The Treasury Department caught about 13,500 federal payments headed to dead people and sent the money, roughly $175 million, back to the agencies before it went out. On Tuesday, October 6, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the catch came from a new check that screens payments first, something most federal programs did not have until this past year.
Quick Take
- Treasury screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments worth about $3.7 trillion in fiscal year 2026.
- About 13,500 payments worth $175 million were bound for people who had died.
- Treasury’s “Do Not Pay” list now reaches 99 percent of federal programs, up from 4 percent.
- The work carries out an executive order President Trump signed in March 2025.
Treasury Stops Payments Before They Go Out
The numbers cover fiscal year 2026, the federal budget year that ended September 30. In that time, Treasury said, it screened more than 1.1 billion federal payments totaling roughly $3.7 trillion. Out of that pile, it identified and returned about 13,500 payments worth $175 million that would have gone to people who were already dead.
Millions saved by blocking dead people payouts as Trump Treasury drops hammer on federal fraud | Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: The Treasury Department blocked $175 million in federal payments tied to deceased recipients in fiscal year 2026, up sharply from the $99 million identified… pic.twitter.com/XoH5bp2Wyu
— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) October 7, 2026
This is not money clawed back after the fact. The payments were stopped and returned to the agencies that ordered them before any check or deposit reached a bank account. That matters, because once a wrong payment is out the door it is very hard to get back, as Bessent has said before.
From 4 Percent To 99 Percent
The tool behind the catch is called Do Not Pay. It is Treasury’s list for checking a payment before it goes out. It matches each payment against government records, including death records, unpaid federal debts and prison records. A year ago, only 4 percent of federal programs had access to it. Treasury said that figure is now 99 percent.
That gap is why the money kept flowing. For most programs, nobody compared the payment list with the death records before paying. Congress has since given Treasury permanent access to the Social Security Administration’s master file of deaths, and Treasury added nine more sources of data to the list this past year.
“Treasury continues to transform how the federal government protects taxpayer dollars by using better data, stronger controls, and advanced technology to stop fraud and improper payments before money goes out the door,” Bessent said. An improper payment is one that should not have been made, or was made in the wrong amount or to the wrong person.
The End Of “Pay And Chase”
“We are moving beyond ‘pay and chase’ and making prevention the federal government’s first line of defense,” Bessent said. “Pay and chase” is the old way of doing it: send the money first, then try to hunt it down if it turns out to be wrong.
The change traces to Executive Order 14249, which President Trump signed in March 2025 under the title “Protecting America’s Bank Account Against Fraud, Waste, and Abuse.” It directs Treasury to verify payments on the front end instead of chasing them afterward.
Numbers Have Grown Since July
Treasury gave an earlier count on July 21. At that point it had screened more than 885 million payments worth about $2.7 trillion and had stopped more than 4,900 payments, close to $99 million, from reaching dead people. Bessent said then that the total could reach $350 million by the end of the year. The year-end figure of $175 million is well above the July count and about half of that estimate.
Why This Fits A Bigger Pattern
Government watchdogs have warned for years that improper payments are a huge and stubborn problem. Since 2003, federal agencies have reported roughly $2.7 trillion in improper payments. In fiscal year 2023 alone the figure was $236 billion across 71 programs. The Government Accountability Office, the watchdog that audits federal spending for Congress, has said the best way to cut improper payments is to stop them from being made in the first place.
That is the approach Treasury is now taking. For years, conservatives have argued that Washington treats taxpayer money like an endless piggy bank. Checking the death records before the check is cut is a plain, practical fix, and it is now built into nearly every federal program.
For taxpayers, the result is easy to measure: $175 million that would have gone to the dead stayed in the Treasury, and the same check now stands in front of the next payment.
Sources:
redstate.com, dailycaller.com, en.bloomingbit.io, home.treasury.gov, abcnews4.com
