There was agreement during the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) monthly agenda meeting that the Universal Service Lifeline program has been a significant target of fraudsters in recent years, and the Commission took action.
An FCC Office of Inspector General (OIG) report found that the Lifeline program paid about $5 million to 117,000 deceased subscribers between 2020 and 2025, and as many as 16,774 of those deceased subscribers were dead at the time of enrollment. OIS also said it found instances of “multiple, duplicative subscriber enrollments” receiving Lifeline support.
“My position on this is clear: To receive federal subsidies like Lifeline, you must be both a living and lawful beneficiary. The government should not be spending the money of hard-working Americans to provide phone and internet service to dead people,” said Chairman Brendan Carr during the meeting.
But Commissioner Anna Gomez said the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) the FCC adopted during the meeting takes some unnecessary actions to fight fraud and that would instead result in less access to the Lifeline program for the low-income families who need it.
The Lifeline program, through participating service providers, offers discounted broadband and telephone service to low-income families at $34.25 a month and up to $100 in one-time start-up costs. The program started life after passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to promote universal telephone service access, but its focus has since shifted to broadband service.
FCC OIS detected similar fraud in the system in a 2017 report, which resulted in the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the Lifeline program administrator, beginning a “death check” as part of the enrollment process. However, the FCC allowed three states (California, Texas, and Oregon) to opt out of the death check process.
The most recent OIG report specifies that the $5 million in fraud was all in the opt-out states. During a press conference after the FCC meeting, Carr said that 80 percent of the fraudulent subscribers were in California. The Commission recently revoked California’s opt-out exemption.
The NPRM proposes defining Lifeline as a “federal public benefit” open only to American citizens and certain qualified aliens. It also investigates whether the FCC should continue to allow states to conduct their own Lifeline subscriber verification and seeks comment on the use of “secondary verification” of consumer requests to enter the program.
Gomez voted “dissenting in part and concurring in part,” and accused Carr of using the Lifeline program to promote partisan Trump administration objectives. She said that the proposals “erect barriers” to eligible families seeking assistance at a time when many are struggling to pay for internet access and other needed services.
Gomez also said that the FCC should instead be seeking ways to increase enrollment in the Lifeline program rather than narrowing eligibility.
“The [OIG] recommendations for addressing fraud were targeted and directly related to two key issues: enrollment of deceased individuals and duplicate enrollment. The IG did not recommend raising eligibility thresholds or imposing additional burdens on consumers,” Gomez said.
“Punishing eligible families, fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem and risks undermining a program designed to help low-income households stay connected.”
