Digital Beat

Chairman Carr Sees Dead People

On January 27, 2026, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Carr posted a press release announcing that the FCC will vote on a reform proposal so that “only living and lawful Americans participate in the Federal Lifeline Program.” A motivating factor in the reform, the press release continued, was the finding from the FCC’s Inspector General report that 116,000 dead people used the Lifeline program. Over nearly five years, this cost taxpayers $5 million in costs to reimburse carriers. Specifically, the FCC’s Office of Inspector General found 116,808 deceased beneficiaries between December 1, 2020, and September 30, 2025.

According to the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), the Lifeline program spent $4.92 billion from 2020 to 2025. Since the OIG report does not include the final three months of 2025, we will subtract the average monthly 2025 Lifeline expenditure from the overall 2025 figure to arrive at $4.69 billion in Lifeline expenditures for the period covered by the new OIG report. As a percentage of total Lifeline disbursements, the “dead people on Lifeline” problem is small – just 0.1% of all expenditures.

So what’s all the fuss about? One real possibility is that a goal is to impose work requirements on those seeking the Lifeline benefit. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez raises the issue of “punitive eligibility standards” in her statement opposing the proposal, pointing to recently enacted changes to Medicaid eligibility that are forecast to cause a loss in Medicaid eligibility for those who cannot show they meet a work requirement. The new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Lifeline seeks to classify Lifeline under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). Known colloquially as the 1996 welfare reform, the law imposed work requirements on recipients as a condition for states receiving the full federal welfare allocation. More recently, the Trump Administration issued an executive order invoking PRWORA to ensure that “unqualified aliens” do not receive public benefits.

Imposing work requirements for Medicaid recipients addresses a very small problem (i.e., working adults receiving government benefits), while imposing burdensome compliance costs on potential beneficiaries. Only 3 percent of the entire Medicaid population is not engaged in long-term work. But when all recipients are asked to verify their work status, enrollment declines. When the state of Arkansas tried this approach, 25 percent of the population subject to the requirement lost Medicaid coverage. Many who lost coverage had dropped their coverage due to difficulty navigating the reporting process.

It seems clear that the Carr agenda is to reduce Lifeline enrollment – perhaps by as many as 2 million households – on the very thin reed of a 0.1 percent issue in the program. That’s 1/1000 of a penny.

If the objective is to have an evidence-based discussion of Lifeline, this is not a promising start. Elevating a narrow administrative problem into a rationale for structural reform is like using a cudgel to take out a splinter. Sure, you might get that small piece of wood out of your finger, but you'll maim your hand. Let's not do this to Lifeline.

John Horrigan is a Senior Fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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