DENVER -- Critics of the president's economic stimulus plan have mentioned the unintended consequences of the $787 billion program. Now they may have more evidence to work with.

Social Security officials told TheDenverChannel.com that dead people are receiving recovery funds.

"The Social Security Administration is aware that stimulus payments have gone to some people who have been deceased for many years," said Jan Foushee, regional communications director for the SSA in Denver. "The payments went to people who, while currently not receiving Social Security benefits, continued to have an "active" status on our records because their deaths were never reported to the SSA. Thus, according to the Recovery Act, these people were presumed eligible for the recovery payments."

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law Feb. 17 in Denver at the Museum of Nature and Science.

According to the Web site created along with the act itself, "the Act will lay the foundation for a robust and sustainable 21st century economy."

Paying the dead is not mentioned as one of the goals of the program.

One-time Economic Recovery Payments, as they're known, were sent last month.

The SSA also hired another 37 employees in Denver, according to a report posted June 12 on Recovery.gov.

In April, Social Security administrators started asking citizens how they would spend the one-time payment of $250.

According to Social Security Online, nearly 55 million beneficiaries were in line to receive the payout if their address of record was "in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, or the Northern Mariana Islands. Individuals who were not eligible for Social Security, SSI, Veterans, or Railroad Retirement benefits at any time during the months of November 2008, December 2008, or January 2009 are not eligible for the one-time payment."

The checks from the Treasury Department went out in May.

Recipients were told not to do anything to receive the payment and asked not to contact SSA unless the check was not received by June 4.

These checks went to 647,792 beneficiaries in Colorado, including "a few" that had already died, totaling about $162 million, according to the SSA in Denver.

"Most of the more than 2.5 million deaths that occur in the U.S. each year are reported to SSA -- by family members, funeral homes, and states. However, there are some instances where this does not happen. The U.S. Postal Service returns checks mailed to people no longer living at the address," Foushee said.

So now the real question: if you got a check for $250 for your deceased spouse or relative, can you spend it?

"If anyone receives one of these payments on behalf of a deceased person, they also should return it. Thus far, we have received isolated reports of a few of this type of case," Foushee said.

"And this is the crowd who thinks they can run health care for America?" said former Congressman Tom Tancredo.

Trying to cash in on the deceased is nothing new, of course, and has already generated headlines in other parts of the country.

Last Wednesday, Thomas Parkin, 49, was charged in New York with impersonating his own dead mother in order to collect more than $100,000 in government benefits.

Surveillance cameras in May caught a man at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Brooklyn trying to renew Irene Prusik's driver's license. But she died in 2003 at the age of 73.

Prosecutors say her son, Parkin, had dressed in drag with a wig and glasses in an attempt to renew the license as his mother.

He and an accomplice are being held on $1 million bail.