Waste of the Day: Can You Hear Me Now?
Topline: No matter how far smartphone addiction spreads in America, it’s still impossible to keep texting from the grave. Yet state spending records say otherwise.
Phone and internet providers in three states claimed federal subsidies for nearly 117,000 dead customers from 2020 to 2025, costing the federal government $5 million, according to a new report from the Federal Communications Commission.
Key facts: The FCC’s Lifeline program pays companies to offer discounted phone and internet rates to low-income families who struggle to afford their bills. It costs almost $1 billion annually.
Every year, companies submit a list of their low-income customers, and the FCC checks that the customers are eligible for the subsidies.
But that only happens in 47 states. There are three “opt-out” states — California, Texas and Oregon — who have their own systems for checking eligibility. They were allowed to keep using them when the Lifeline program was created.
Their verification checks are far from perfect, especially in California, which had 81% of the dead customers found by auditors.
The FCC found 16,774 people who phone and internet companies claimed as new customers, even though death records show they were already deceased. In one case, a phone company claimed that someone who had died nearly five years ago was a new customer.
There were 77,446 people who were enrolled in the Lifeline program legitimately but were not removed from subsidy lists after they died. Companies claimed subsidies for an average of more than four months after those customers died, with some keeping them on their list for more than four years.
The FCC also found another 22,588 dead customers but could not determine if they were enrolled before or after they died.
Over 1,000 dead people were claimed as customers in two different states simultaneously.
As of September 2025, phone and internet companies were still receiving subsidies for 11,000 dead people, costing roughly $100,000, according to the FCC.
The FCC revoked California’s “opt-out” status in November 2025. Phone and internet companies must now submit their customer lists to the federal government for verification.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Critical quote: The audit focused only on three states instead of reviewing the entire country, a scope California Gov. Newsom said was too limited.
“We take program integrity seriously. But it’s misleading — and political — to single out California,” Newsom’s press team told the Washington Times. “This is a nationwide issue, not a California scandal.”
Summary: Phone calls from the dead are best left to short stories and horror movies, not the federal budget.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
