Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr announced Tuesday that the agency will vote next month on proposals to remove fraud from the Lifeline program, which provided taxpayer dollars to pay for phone and internet services for more than 116,000 dead people.
“If the government is going to spend your hard earned dollars, it must ensure that they go only to living and lawful Americans,” Carr wrote on X.
Carr’s announcement followed a report from the Federal Communications Commission Office of Inspector General (FCC OIG), which found startling levels of fraud in the program. Congress and the FCC established the Lifeline program to help low-income Americans receive affordable communications service, which may include voice and broadband services and is paid out of the Universal Service Fund (USF).
The fraud includes “at least 16,774, and potentially as many as 39,362, deceased people, [who] were first enrolled and then claimed by a provider after they died (i.e. they were deceased at the time of enrollment.)”
Carr wrote that it may seem “obvious” to ensure that taxpayer dollars go to lawful Americans; however, he cautioned that the inspector general report found startling fraud within the Lifeline program:
1. A new Inspector General advisory found that providers took nearly $5 million in federal dollars to provide phone and Internet service to over 116,000 dead people. And this IG advisory looked at just three states.
2. Gavin Newsom’s California was by far the worst offender of these opt-out states. On Governor Newsom’s watch, California allowed over 94,000 dead people to be used to obtain federal dollars for phone and Internet service. The FCC recently revoked California’s authority to run its own verification process.
3. The FCC’s federal Lifeline program, which spends nearly $1 billion every year, does not have adequate checks in place to ensure that only lawful beneficiaries obtain those subsidies. There has been a recent rise in non-citizens fraudulently obtaining social security numbers. And the current verification process does not do a good enough job at preventing duplicative subscriptions and similar abuse.
In November 2025, the FCC revoked California’s “opt-out” status and now requires that federal Lifeline applicants in California comply with the federal verification process that applies to most other states.
Carr warned that current agency regulations do not ensure that these federal dollars only go to American citizens, noting there has been a rise in non-citizens fraudulently obtaining social security numbers.
“So the FCC will be voting on a plan to address all of these issues. Your hard-earned dollars should only be going to those households that Congress intended to benefit,” Carr said in a statement.
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