Social Security Announces Four Key Updates to Address Improper Payments
Reading Time: 3 MinutesLast Updated: March 20, 2024
Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley today announced he is taking four vital steps to immediately address overpayment issues customers and the agency have experienced. Commissioner O’Malley testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (excerpt):
“For 88 years, the hard-working employees of the Social Security Administration have strived to pay the right amount, to the right person, at the right time. And the agency has done this with a high degree of accuracy over a massive scale of beneficiaries. But despite our best efforts, we sometimes get it wrong and pay beneficiaries more than they are due, creating an overpayment.
When that happens, Congress requires that we make every effort to recover those overpaid benefits. But doing so without regard to the larger purpose of the program can result in grave injustices to individuals, as we see from the stories of people losing their homes or being put in dire financial straits when they suddenly see their benefits cut off to recover a decades-old overpayment, or disability beneficiaries attempting to work and finding their efforts rewarded with large overpayments. Innocent people can be badly hurt. And these injustices shock our shared sense of equity and good conscience as Americans.
We are continually improving how we serve the millions of people who depend on our programs, although we have room for improvement, as media reports last fall revealed. We have also embarked upon a deep dive into the extent of the overpayment problem at Social Security, the root causes of these administrative errors, and the steps we can take as an agency to address these individual injustices.
Our deeper understanding of the complexities of this problem has set us on the following course of action:
- Starting next Monday, March 25, we will be ceasing the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100 percent of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit by default if they fail to respond to our demand for repayment. Moving forward, we will now use a much more reasonable default withholding rate of 10 percent of monthly benefits — similar to the current rate in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.
- We will be reframing our guidance and procedures so that the burden of proof shifts away from the claimant in determining whether there is any evidence that the claimant was at fault in causing the overpayment.
- For the vast majority of beneficiaries who request to work out a repayment plan, we recently changed our policy so that we will approve repayment plans of up to 60 months. To qualify, Social Security beneficiaries would only need to provide a verbal summary of their income, resources, and expenses, and recipients of the means-tested SSI program would not need to provide even this summary. This change extended this easier repayment option by an additional two years (from 36 to 60 months).
- And finally, we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay.
Implementing these policy changes — with proper education and training across the people, policies, and systems of the agency — is an important but complex shift. And we are undertaking that shift with urgency, diligence, and speed.
I look forward to working with Members to discuss ideas that could address the root causes of overpayments.”
Social Security launched a comprehensive review in October 2023 of agency overpayment policies and procedures to address payment accuracy systematically. Learn about Overpayments and Our Process on our website. These changes are a direct result of the ongoing review. Additionally, the agency recently announced it is working to reduce wage-related improper payments by using its legal authority to establish information exchanges with payroll data providers that will significantly reduce the number of improper payments, once implemented. The agency will continue examining programmatic policy and making regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to improve the overpayment process. More details on these updates will be shared as they become available.
To watch the testimony and read Commissioner O’Malley Statement for the Record, visit Keeping Our Promise to Older Adults and | Senate Committee On Aging.
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Carolyn M.
We will never recouped our social security back into our trust funds at 10%! Instead of cutting people completely out of their monthly income, just cut it in half! They lived high on the hog when they were overpaid, now it is time to pay it back, but NOT at 10 little percent! At least ask for 25-50 percent back now!
Teri J.
Carolyn,
Obviously you have not faced any one of the various situations that can cause an over-payment and imply that everyone who has been overpaid has caused this intentionally and willfully. There are many situations where that is far from the truth. I myself am facing one such situations. I am not going to give the details but SSA does not always disclose full information; make take years to approve a disability claim; can and does make errors. Not everyone who has received an overpayment is a thief. I hope you never have to face a situation were the only money you have coming is being withheld at 100% of your benefit for something that was not your fault.
Toon
In the year of 2013, I found myself in an overpayment situation with my state employer. I still can’t understand how does one go so long before discovering that a recipient is being overpaid. I was a horrific time for me and my family. My income source from them went from 1,300 and some dollars a month to saying I was only entitled to the $300 dollar amount. I loss $1,000 of income virtually overnight. How was I to pay my bills and care for my family. We had just struggled through a Workman’s Comp very tight budget. Workman’s Comp was only 66 2/rds of your original salary. having workded for ths agency 12 years at that time, I had no reason to question the amount I was receiving. The reasoning being was because In the past what they said my salary would be, “was” precisely that and the same with my Workman’s Comp and why would I question a State Treasury Dept. on the amount I would receive. They are the professionals in checking and balancing these types of things, right? Wrong. NOT only has it happened to me, but it has happened to several other of this agencies employees and it continues to happen without any sanction or relief for these employees. The Agencyexpeditiously and very agesssively comes after the employee to recup this money. When I asked for time to get my self together due to this unexpectant payment, I was told the time to get my self together was when i was taking this money in error. I was treated as if I knew the payment was wrong. Nothing could have been further from the truth. My family and I suffered greatly from this error. We loss our home, and moved many many times trying to re-establish ourselves, my cars were repossessed and I was shamed by “some” of my family (I had to ask for help at times. . It was a mentally devastating time in my life. but with faith and determination, the money is almost repaid. As my Social Security Cost of Living went up, my Disability check amount dwindled down, due to the offset rule, and now that once $1,300.00 figure is now where I get less than $50.00 a month now. I have loss my life insurance, vision and dental benefits that I could one time at least pay out of that state check. It is wrong for this to happened to dedicated employees and to find themselves in such aa horrifical status. Especially Elderly retired persons who should not have to get a job to repay this money when they have become ill and really don’t need to be repaying an error that is not their fault. Were is a voice for this situation to rectify it. We live in a Tech society with computer programs that are precise to the point. So this has happened enough times for a solution to be found. It is devastating, and it is wrong. It’s now 2024, and I am still dealing with situations that were created by this error. I was told it this is tax payers money and it must be recouped, but the majority of these persons never intentionally did this. Admit your error and work in a favorable manner to rectify this situation. Thank you,
Janie O.
I receive disability due to Alzheimer’s and Lupus. I was no longer able to work because of my Alzheimer’s. I could not keep up with the work load or remember everything I needed to do. The stress became a real factor because it caused my Alzheimer’s and Lupus to flair up more often. My income is all disability. Are you going to reduce my income, which I have paid into to get the benefit? This is critical to get the full impact it will have on our monthly income. You need to get more info out to everyone so we know what impact this is going to be? How in the world could this be happening? You better get all of the impacts documented so we know what monetary impact this will cost!! This is going to create a huge issue for all of us who have paid in
All the time we worked and had money deducted. You better be prepared for plenty of backlash because I do not want to see my income drop due to your mistakes!
Sue
Hi, Janie. Thanks for reading our blog and for your questions. An overpayment occurs when you receive more money than you should have been paid. If you’re overpaid, we’ll notify you by mail. To learn more about overpayments, check out our blog and Frequently Asked Questions. If you still have questions, you can call us at 1-800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. We hope this helps.
PJ M.
Reading these comments makes me afraid of being forced on to SS in the future. The government takes our money, then has the audacity to call it a government benefit!! With this “overpayment issue” it seems like all of the SS money paid in by working citizens has been mismanaged (NOT OVERPAID) and they are trying to refill the pot. If there is anything left after I go, my own family doesn’t even get it. They call it retirement benefit, but who can live on the measly amounts you get, it’s a joke. This is a government created ponzi scheme.