HR-8822-119
Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 32 - 0.
Sponsored by Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA)
What it does
This bill would amend the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) to allow the Secretary of Labor to request earnings and employment information — without notifying or obtaining consent from the employee — from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services' National Directory of New Hires. The goal is to detect and prevent improper payments to federal workers receiving workers' compensation benefits. The Secretary of Labor would be required to establish data-sharing memoranda of understanding with both agencies and create identity-correlation procedures within 90 days of enactment.
Who benefits
Federal taxpayers broadly, who would benefit from reduced improper payments in the FECA program. The Department of Labor's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, which would gain a formal legal tool to cross-check benefit eligibility. Federal agencies whose budgets fund workers' compensation costs. Legitimately injured federal workers whose program funding is protected from fraud-related drain. Congress and oversight bodies seeking greater program integrity.
Who is hurt
Federal employees currently receiving FECA benefits who may have their earnings and employment records reviewed without their knowledge or consent, raising privacy concerns. Workers whose benefits are incorrectly flagged due to data errors or mismatches between agency databases. Privacy and civil liberties advocates who oppose warrantless, non-consensual government data sharing. Federal employees who return to some work while still partially disabled and whose complex employment situations may be misread by automated cross-checks. The Social Security Administration and HHS, which would bear administrative costs of responding to data requests at no charge to the Labor Department.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that the FECA program paid out approximately $3 billion annually in recent years, and the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly flagged it as vulnerable to improper payments due to limited cross-agency data sharing. They contend that allowing the Labor Department to verify earnings against SSA and new-hire records — a standard practice in state workers' compensation systems — is a targeted, proportionate tool to ensure that only eligible claimants receive benefits, protecting both program integrity and the workers who depend on it.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue that authorizing the government to collect personal financial and employment records on federal workers without notice or consent sets a troubling precedent for warrantless surveillance of public employees. They contend that database cross-matching is prone to errors — mismatched records, data entry mistakes, or legitimate part-time work during recovery — that could wrongly suspend benefits for genuinely injured workers who have no advance warning to correct the record before action is taken against them.
Constitutional context
The bill raises potential Fifth Amendment Due Process concerns: because data may be collected and acted upon without notice to the affected employee, claimants may argue they are deprived of a property interest (ongoing benefits) without adequate procedural protections. The Necessary and Proper Clause (Art. I, §8, cl. 18) provides broad authority for Congress to structure federal benefit programs and their oversight mechanisms. No active Supreme Court doctrine directly constrains this type of inter-agency data sharing for federal benefit administration.
Checks and balances
The executive branch — specifically the Department of Labor — gains new data-access authority; checks include the requirement for formal memoranda of understanding with SSA and HHS, existing Privacy Act protections, and any administrative or judicial review available to claimants whose benefits are affected by information obtained under this section.
Historical precedent
Similar cross-agency data matching to detect improper payments has been used in Social Security and Medicaid programs under the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988, which established procedural requirements for federal data-matching programs.