Read original article at The National Desk.

WASHINGTON (TND) — Seventeen of the largest federal agencies admitted to $3 trillion in improper payments since 2004.

CEO and founder of Open The Books Adam Andrzejewski joined The National Desk’s Dee Dee Gatton Friday to discuss the issue.

Andrzejewski broke down what were some of the improper payments and who were some of the biggest offenders. 

"These are the federal agencies that admit to paying the wrong person under the wrong set of rules for a payment in the wrong amount. There are actually mistakes and the largest federal programs are actually admitting to billions of dollars of these mistakes. For example, Medicaid and Medicare last year admitted to about $130 billion worth of improper payments. And even the IRS is not immune. So the IRS runs the Earned Income Tax Program $18.9 billion flowed out the door on overpayments on that program to people that actually collect the checks from the Internal Revenue Service that didn't qualify for the program. That program is supposed to serve poor people. So at the end of the day, it's institutionalized incompetence in the federal agencies and your stake of that for man, woman and child is $850. For every single one of us, if you're a family of four, that's $3,400 and that's equivalent to two average mortgage payments." 

Improper payments are defined as "payments made by the government to the wrong person, in the wrong amount, or for the wrong reason," according to federal law.

The report from OpenTheBooks says that the "worst year on record" for improper payments was 2021 when $281 billion is said to have been paid out incorrectly.