Social Security Administration Charge Card Program Risk: Low

April 15, 2026

The Social Security Administration (SSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently informed the Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of the OIG’s assessment of SSA’s charge card program and determined the risk was low.

SSA reported it had approximately $21 million in purchase card spending and approximately $2 million in travel card and centrally billed account spending in Fiscal Year (FY) 2025. SSA had not significantly changed its controls since the last assessment, and nothing came to SSA OIG’s attention that required further analysis or audit of SSA’s purchase and travel card purchases and payments.

SSA has established safeguards and internal controls that are intended to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of purchase cards, travel cards, and centrally billed accounts. The Agency’s Purchase and Travel Card Management Plans, which address legal and regulatory requirements, outline policies and procedures the Agency believes are critical to (1) ensuring a system of internal control is followed and (2) minimizing the potential for fraud, misuse, and delinquency.

As required by the Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act of 2012 (Act), as implemented by Appendix B of OMB Circular A-123, A Risk Management Framework for Government Charge Card Programs, all Executive Branch agencies must implement safeguards and internal controls to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of purchase cards, travel cards, and centrally billed accounts. SSA OIG assessed the risk of illegal, improper, and erroneous purchases made through the SSA charge card programs.

For Executive Branch agencies with more than $10 million in annual purchase and/or $10 million in travel spending, the Act tasks Inspectors General to:

Periodically assess agencies’ purchase card or convenience check programs and travel card programs to identify and analyze the risks of illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases and payments;
Analyze or audit, as necessary, purchase and travel card transactions designed to identify potentially illegal, improper, or erroneous uses of purchase and travel cards;
Report to the Director of OMB on the implementation of recommendations made to the head of the Executive Branch Agency to address findings from any analysis or audit of purchase or travel card transactions; and
Report jointly with the respective agency to the head of OMB on confirmed charge card violations.

In addition, OIGs must report to the Director of OMB on how their respective agencies have implemented recommendations. As of FY 2025, there were no open or closed prior-year recommendations pertaining to SSA’s charge card programs.

Further, agencies must semi-annually report confirmed violations of purchase card misuse and all adverse personnel actions, punishment, or other actions taken based on each violation. However, SSA did not submit its Semi-annual Joint Violation reports in FY 2025. According to SSA’s purchase card coordinator, SSA did not report the purchase card violations because SSA had reorganized and changed the purchase card program based on the February 2025 Executive Order, Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative. During OIG’s review, in March 2026, SSA submitted its FY 2025 violation report.

For FY 2025, SSA reported no instances of misuse in its charge card programs. While purchase cards had no delinquencies, SSA reported there were two instances of delinquent travel card accounts that were 60 days past due. However, the employees paid those balances. In addition, SSA did not have any open or closed investigations and legal proceedings that involved charge card misuse by SSA employees.

Finally, the February 2025 Executive Order required all charge card transactions except for spending on disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits, operations, or other critical services be treated as frozen for 30 days. To comply with the Executive Order, SSA employees set single transaction limits to $1 for purchase and travel cards.

Read the full report here.

Download a PDF of the press release here.