Social Security Eliminates Overpayment Burden for Social Security Beneficiaries

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The Social Security Administration announced it will decrease the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security beneficiaries to ten percent (or $10, whichever is greater) from 100 percent, significantly reducing financial hardship on people with overpayments.

"Social Security is taking a critically important step towards our goal of ensuring our overpayment policies are fair, equitable, and do not unduly harm anyone," said Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. "It's unconscionable that someone would find themselves facing homelessness or unable to pay bills, because Social Security withheld their entire payment for recovery of an overpayment."

The agency works to pay the right people the right amounts at the right time, and Social Security issues correct payments in most cases. However, there is room to improve, as people count on the agency to prevent overpayments from happening and make it easier to navigate the recovery and waiver processes when they occur.

When a person has been overpaid, the law requires the agency to seek repayment, which can create financial difficulties for beneficiaries. As of March 25, 2024, the agency will collect ten percent (or $10, whichever is greater) of the total monthly Social Security benefit to recover an overpayment, rather than collecting 100 percent as was previous procedure. There will be limited exceptions to this change, such as when an overpayment resulted from fraud.

There will be a short transition period where people will continue to experience the older policy. People placed in 100 percent withholding during this transition period should call Social Security's National 800 Number at 1-800-772-1213 to lower their withholding rate.

The change applies to new overpayments. If beneficiaries already have an overpayment with a withholding rate greater than ten percent and would like a lower recovery rate, they too should call Social Security at 1-800-772-1213 or their local Social Security office to speak with a representative. If a beneficiary requests a rate lower than ten percent, a representative will approve the request if it allows recovery of the overpayment within 60 months - a recent increase to improve how the agency serves its customers from the previous policy of only 36 months. If the beneficiary's proposed rate would extend recovery of the overpayment beyond 60 months, the Social Security representative will gather income, resource, and expense information from the beneficiary to make a determination.

Social Security launched a comprehensive review in October 2023 of agency overpayment policies and procedures to address payment accuracy systematically (See Learn about Overpayments and Our Process | SSA and Press Release | Press Office | SSA). This procedure change is a direct result of the ongoing review. This change and the adjustment to 60-month repayment are part of four recently announced key updates to address improper payments (See Press Release | Press Office | SSA for more information). The agency also is working to reduce wage-related improper payments by establishing information exchanges with payroll data providers that will significantly reduce the number of improper payments, once implemented (See Press Release | Press Office | SSA for more information). The agency will continue examining programmatic policy and making regulatory and sub-regulatory changes to improve the overpayment process.

Additionally, people have the right to appeal the overpayment decision or the amount. They can ask Social Security to waive collection of the overpayment, if they believe it was not their fault and can't afford to pay it back. The agency does not pursue recoveries while an initial appeal or waiver is pending. Even if people do not want to appeal or request a waiver, they should contact the agency if the planned withholding would cause hardship. Social Security has flexible repayment options, including repayment of as low as $10 per month. Each person's situation is unique, and the agency handles overpayments on a case-by-case basis.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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Today, the Social Security Administration published a final rule, "Omitting Food from In-Kind Support and Maintenance (ISM) Calculations." The final rule announces the first of several updates to the agency's Supplemental Security Income (SSI) regulations that will help people receiving and applying for SSI.

"A vital part of our mission is helping people access crucial benefits, including SSI," said Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. "Simplifying our policies is a common-sense solution that reduces the burden on the public and agency staff and helps promote equity by removing barriers to accessing payments."

SSI provides monthly payments to adults and children with a disability or blindness, and to adults aged 65 and older, who have limited income and resources. SSI benefits help pay for basic needs like rent, food, clothing, and medicine. People applying for and receiving SSI must meet eligibility requirements, including income and resource limits. Under our old rules, ISM includes food, shelter, or both a person receives - the agency counts ISM as unearned income, which may affect a person's eligibility or reduce their payment amount.

Under the final rule, beginning September 30, 2024, the agency will no longer include food in ISM calculations. The new policy removes a critical barrier for SSI eligibility due to an applicant's or recipient's receipt of informal food assistance from friends, family, and community networks of support. The new policy further helps in several important ways: the change is easier to understand and use by applicants, recipients, and agency employees; applicants and recipients have less information to report about food assistance received from family and friends, removing a significant source of burden; reducing month-to-month variability in payment amounts will improve payment accuracy; and the agency will see administrative savings because less time will be spent administering food ISM.

The agency continuously examines programmatic policy and makes regulatory and sub-regulatory changes as appropriate. Look for more SSI announcements in the coming weeks.

For more information on the SSI program, including who is eligible and how to apply, visit Supplemental Security Income (SSI) | SSA.

To read the final rule "Omitting Food from In-Kind Support and Maintenance Calculations," visit Federal Register: Omitting Food From In-Kind Support and Maintenance Calculations.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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).
4. 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. (See Learn about Overpayments and Our Process | SSA and Press Release | Press Office | SSA). 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. (See Press Release | Press Office | SSA for more information). 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 and Hearing | Hearings | The United States Senate Committee on Finance.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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Key investments focus on improving the customer experience, reducing wait times at all stages of the disability process and on our National 800 Number, modernizing our information technology, improving overpayment and underpayment processes, and advancing equity by increasing access to our programs.

The Biden-Harris Administration today released the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2025. Following historic progress made since the President took office-with nearly 15 million jobs created and inflation down two-thirds-the Budget protects and builds on this progress by lowering costs for working families, protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, investing in America and the American people, and reducing the deficit by cracking down on fraud, cutting wasteful spending, and making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.

The Budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity for decades to come. At the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Budget will:

• Protect the Social Security Benefits that Americans Have Earned. The Administration is committed to protecting and strengthening Social Security and opposes any attempt to cut Social Security benefits as well as proposals to privatize Social Security. The Administration believes that protecting Social Security should start with asking the highest-income Americans to pay their fair share. In addition, the Administration supports efforts to improve Social Security benefits, as well as SSI benefits, for seniors and people with disabilities, especially for those who face the greatest challenges making ends meet.
• Improve Service Delivery. The Administration is committed to improving service delivery for the more than six million retirement, survivor, and Medicare claimants, as well as the more than two million individuals applying for disability and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) every year. The Budget requests $15.4 billion in discretionary budget authority-a $1.3 billion or 9 percent increase over the 2023 enacted level-to improve customer service at SSA's field offices, State disability determination services, and teleservice centers for retirees, individuals with disabilities, and their families. The Budget also improves access to SSA's services by reducing wait times.
• Advance Equity and Accessibility. This Budget ensures we will deliver accessible Social Security services to all eligible individuals, while maintaining rigorous stewardship and oversight of our programs. Our programs must reach underserved communities and people facing barriers to accessing our services, including individuals with low income, limited English proficiency, mental and intellectual disabilities, and those facing homelessness. The Budget also supports our efforts to simplify and update the SSI application processes and expand access to agency programs and services through our outreach efforts, particularly for underserved communities. We will improve our IT systems to provide a more consistent, equitable, and accessible experience for our customers; reduce burdensome manual processes for our employees; increase self-service options on our National 800 Number; and expand our cybersecurity program. Further, the Budget prioritizes preventing and resolving improper payments.
• Provide National, Comprehensive Paid Family and Medical Leave. The vast majority of America's workers do not have access to employer-provided paid family leave, including 73 percent of private sector workers. Among the lowest-paid workers, who are disproportionately women and workers of color, 94 percent lack access to paid family leave through their employers. In addition, as many as one in five retirees leave the workforce earlier than planned to care for an ill family member, which negatively impacts families, as well as the Nation's labor supply and productivity. The Budget proposes to establish a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by SSA. The program would: provide workers with progressive, partial wage replacement to take time off for family and medical reasons; include robust administrative funding; and use an inclusive family definition. The Budget would provide up to 12 weeks of leave to allow eligible workers to take time off to: care for and bond with a new child; care for a seriously ill loved one; heal from their own serious illness; address circumstances arising from a loved one's military deployment; or find safety from domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking -otherwise known as "safe leave". The Budget would also provide up to three days to grieve the death of a loved one. The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress to make this critical investment and strengthen America's economy.

The Budget builds on the President's record while achieving meaningful deficit reduction through measures that cut wasteful spending and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

For more information on the President's FY 2025 Budget, please visit: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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The Social Security Administration and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) are partnering once again to raise public awareness about Social Security imposter scams during their fifth annual "Slam the Scam" Day on March 7.

"As public servants, we must use every tool at our disposal to raise awareness and protect the American people against Social Security imposter scams," said Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. "Scammers use fear and deception to scare people out of their critical benefits. We urge everyone to protect their personal information, remain vigilant, do not give money, and report any scam attempts to oig.ssa.gov."

Social Security scams--where fraudsters mislead victims into making cash, gift card, or wire transfer payments to fix alleged Social Security number problems or to avoid arrest--are an ongoing government imposter fraud scheme. Social Security impersonation scams have been one of the most common government imposter scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission. Social Security continues to make concerted efforts to address this issue, through extensive outreach and investigative initiatives.

Criminals use sophisticated tactics to trick potential victims into disclosing personal and financial information. Typically, they use these P's - Pretend, Prize or Problem, Pressure, and Payment. For example, scammers pretend they are from Social Security in phone calls, texts, emails, and direct messages on social media, and claim there is a problem with the person's Social Security number. The scammer's caller ID may be spoofed to look like a legitimate government number. Scammers may also send fake documents to pressure people into complying with demands for information or money. Other common tactics include citing "badge numbers," using fraudulent Social Security letterhead, and creating imposter social media pages to target individuals for payment or personal information.

"On our fifth National Slam the Scam Day, we are just as committed as we were in 2020. The scammers have not stopped, and we will not stop in our commitment to increase public awareness of these pervasive scams," said Gail S. Ennis, Inspector General for SSA. "We are grateful for the many partnerships we have formed over the last 5 years in support of this initiative and the collaborative efforts that have come forth. We must continue to work together to slam the scam."

Social Security will never tell you that your Social Security number is suspended; contact you to demand an immediate payment; threaten you with arrest; ask for your credit or debit card numbers over the phone; request gift cards or cash; or promise a Social Security benefit approval or increase in exchange for information or money.

Social Security employees do contact the public by telephone for business purposes. Ordinarily, the agency calls people who have recently applied for a Social Security benefit, are already receiving payments and require an update to their record, or have requested a phone call from the agency. If there is a problem with a person's Social Security number or record, Social Security will typically mail a letter.

Today's events include:

• 1 p.m. ET: Join USAgov's National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW) X/Twitter chat (in Spanish) for advice on avoiding common scams with @USAGovEspanol. Follow the conversation by using the hashtags #OjoConLasEstafas and #NCPW2024.
• 3 p.m. ET: Join USAgov's NCPW X/Twitter chat (in English) for advice on avoiding common scams with @USAGov. Follow the conversation by using the hashtags #SlamTheScamChat and #NCPW2024.

To report a scam attempt, go to oig.ssa.gov. For more information, please visit www.ssa.gov/scam and www.ssa.gov/fraud.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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Today, the Social Security Administration published a proposed rule, "Use of Electronic Payroll Data to Improve Program Administration," describing the agency's plans for accessing and using information from payroll data providers to reduce improper payments, including overpayments, which improves service to customers.

Unreported, late reported, and incorrectly reported earnings are often a cause of overpayments for people who receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments. When a person has been overpaid, the law requires the agency to ask for repayment, which can create financial difficulties for beneficiaries.

"Social Security is taking a critically important step to reduce improper payments, including overpayments, by ensuring we receive timely and accurate wage data. These automated payroll information exchanges will address the inefficiencies associated with self-reporting and manual verification by introducing a more streamlined approach," said Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. "These exchanges will prevent inequities caused by improper payments by enabling Social Security employees to adjust SSI payments before they are issued and help us more efficiently administer SSDI."

Social Security is working to reduce wage-related improper payments by using its legal authority to establish information exchanges with payroll data providers. These exchanges will help ensure the agency receives timely and accurate wage data. These exchanges and the agency's planned business process is called the Payroll Information Exchange (PIE).

PIE will help reduce manual reporting errors as well as the reporting burden for individuals who authorize Social Security to obtain their wage and employment information through these information exchanges and work for employers whose payroll data is available through the exchange. PIE will also help to more quickly identify wages that often go unreported or undetected and which can lead to improper payments.

People may read the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) here. Public comment is an important part of this process and people may provide comments on the NPRM by April 15, 2024.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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Increasing access to programs and improving service are the main goals of the updated Equity Action Plan released by the Social Security Administration (SSA) today.

"We will administer our programs equitably by reducing administrative burdens and reaching underserved people," said Martin O'Malley, Commissioner of Social Security. "In line with the Administration's whole-of-government approach to deliver better outcomes for the American people, I'm pleased to share our Equity Action Plan 2023 Update."

In 2022, SSA released its first Equity Action Plan in accordance with the President's Executive Order, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.

The updated SSA Equity Action Plan includes several new focus areas:

• Ensure language does not pose barriers to apply for benefits and access services;
• Reduce pending Supplemental Security Income (SSI) underpayments and assess root causes of improper payments; and
• Increase awareness of survivors benefits, especially among people disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

The new Equity Action Plan also builds on progress made since 2022 to:

• Simplify the SSI application;
• Update the agency's systems and Social Security number business processes; and
• Provide more demographic data to the public to further identify, monitor, and address where there are service inequities.

For more information about the actions outlined in the Equity Action Plan, please visit www.ssa.gov/equity. To learn about a whole-of-government approach to advance equity for all, visit www.whitehouse.gov/equity.

To get more Social Security news, follow the Press Office on Twitter @SSAPress.

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