Instead, the agency will default to withholding 50% of old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits, the agency said in an “” to staff dated April 25.

The agency long made it a routine to halt benefits to recoup billions of dollars it sent recipients but later said they should not have received. A policy under the Joe Biden administration to provide relief to beneficiaries, who often live on the fringe of poverty, last year had capped the clawbacks at 10%.

The partial reversal is another twist in the Trump administration’s tumultuous approach to Social Security, which has included and the acting commissioner’s threat, which has , to essentially .

The emergency message involves the agency’s practice of paying beneficiaries money they were not supposed to receive — and then, often after years have passed and the amounts have ballooned to tens of thousands of dollars or more per person — demanding the money back, even if the overpayment was Social Security’s fault.

In many cases, recovering the money had entailed withholding 100% of monthly benefits.

Millions of beneficiaries, including people struggling to get by on monthly checks, have received overpayment notices, a 2023 investigation by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group found. Clawbacks have left some homeless, the news organizations reported.

In the aftermath of that reporting, Martin O’Malley, tapped by President Joe Biden in 2023 to head the agency, sought to end what he described as “grave injustices” that left people “in dire financial straits.”

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In March 2024, O’Malley said the agency would stop “that clawback cruelty” of intercepting 100% of a beneficiary’s monthly check if they fail to respond to a demand for repayment. Instead, the agency would default to withholding 10% of the recipient’s monthly benefits, he said.

A year later, the Trump administration reversed that policy change, returning to 100% withholding for new overpayments. “It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds,” acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said in a .

Now, in a pattern that has played out on multiple fronts during the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term, the administration is partly reversing the reversal.

This time, it issued no news release.

“I think that we had the policy right before,” O’Malley said in an interview April 28. “We looked at the various break points, and if you would depend entirely on your Social Security check, having half of it interrupted means what? That means you go without paying your heating bill for the month; that means you’d go without your medicine instead of buying medicine and food.”

“So it was a cruelhearted policy before,” he added. At 50%, “it’s half as cruel, but it’s still cruel.”

Withholding even 50% of monthly benefits will “cause hardship for many older and disabled people,” said Kathleen Romig, who worked at the Social Security Administration under O’Malley and is now director of Social Security and disability policy at the . “Going without half a Social Security check would make it harder for many people to afford basic needs like housing, food, and health care,” Romig said.

The SSA press office did not respond to questions for this article.

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The emergency message to SSA staff said the new policy applies to overpayment notices sent on or after April 25. In one place, the message said the new withholding rate will be “up to 50 percent.” If the recipient does not request a lower rate of withholding, reconsideration, or a waiver — and “if there is no fraud or similar fault” — the agency will begin cutting their benefit payment after about 90 days, it said.

That does not apply to withholding of benefits in the Supplemental Security Income program, which serves people who have disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources, as the . The agency said in March that withholding of SSI benefits would remain capped at 10%.

Kate Lang, director of federal income security at the advocacy group , welcomed the shift from 100% withholding but said she was disappointed the agency didn’t revert to 10%. Lang called the agency’s conduct “chaotic and confusing.”

“It creates more work for SSA — more people calling with questions, more errors being made that need to be corrected, more confusion and uncertainty about what is going on,” Lang said.

“It’s a nightmare,” O’Malley said, “for not only the staff to have all of the switcheroo on policy, but also for the beneficiaries.”

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The agency had long made it a practice to reduce or halt benefit checks to recoup billions of dollars in payments it sent recipients but later said they never should have received.

Martin O’Malley, then the Social Security Administration commissioner, announced in March 2024 the agency would no longer cut off people’s monthly old-age, survivors, and disability checks to recoup money they had allegedly been overpaid — a pattern he called “.” Instead, it would default to withholding 10% of monthly benefits. The new policy allowed people who already live on little to pay their rent and keep food on the table.

Last Friday, the Trump administration reversed that policy.

Beginning March 27, to recover new overpayments, the Social Security Administration will automatically withhold 100% of recipients’ monthly benefits, .

The agency said it was acting in the interest of fiscal responsibility and that the reversal would save the government about $7 billion over a decade.

“It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds,” acting Commissioner Lee Dudek said in a news release.

Advocates for Social Security beneficiaries described the action as cruel and harmful.

“The results are predictable: more unnecessary suffering,” said Kathleen Romig, who worked at the Social Security Administration under O’Malley and is now director of Social Security and disability policy at the .

Kate Lang of the advocacy group said she was heartbroken.

“Those who are most vulnerable, with the fewest resources, are the ones who will feel the harsh impacts of this change,” she said. Many “are going to be unable to buy food or keep the roof over their head,” she said.

In 2023, after an investigation by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group cast a spotlight on overpayments and clawbacks, lawmakers from both parties called on the Social Security Administration to change its approach.

The policy change a year ago was inspired in part by the plight of people such as Denise Woods, who was sleeping in her Chevy in Savannah, Georgia, in December 2023 while contending with lupus and congestive heart failure after the government cut off her disability benefits. The government was demanding she repay almost $58,000.

Many overpayments are the result of government error. It can take the government years to figure out it has been paying someone too much, and by then, the amount the government says it is owed can grow far beyond a beneficiary’s ability to repay. And it has often demanded that recipients repay the full amount within 30 days.

As of October, the SSA was withholding at least a portion of monthly benefit payments from hundreds of thousands of people, according to data the SSA provided last fall to Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group. The agency said it was withholding up to 10% from 669,903 people to recoup an overpayment. Asked whether those numbers covered all types of benefits administered by the SSA, the agency’s press office didn’t say.

“Under Trump’s leadership, Social Security has reinstated a cruel policy of clawing back Social Security overpayments with no regard for an American’s ability to pay or whether the overpayment was an error by the agency,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The new plan to completely withhold monthly benefits from recipients who were allegedly overpaid does not extend to the Supplemental Security Income program, one of two Social Security programs for people with disabilities. SSI, , covers “people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.”

The government’s estimate that cutting people off completely will save $7 billion over a decade implies it expects many more overpayments in the years ahead.

The SSA’s March 7 announcement was part of a broader dismantling of Biden-era policies under President Donald Trump. It was also part of a broader upheaval at the Social Security Administration, which announced in February that it would from about 57,000 to 50,000.

In an interview Monday, O’Malley predicted that the public will experience much longer wait times trying to get through to the agency by phone and longer waits for disability determinations.

Social Security runs on a very old computer system, he said, and driving people out of the agency who understand it “can only result in system collapse.”

“The risk of totally shutting down the agency is greatly increased by people mucking around that don’t know what they’re doing,” O’Malley said.

On the PBS NewsHour last week, he advised recipients to save money to prepare for an interruption of benefits.

Trump deputy Elon Musk has boasted of taking a and has called Social Security a . In a filed last week, a recently retired SSA official, Tiffany Flick, said she “witnessed a disregard for critical processes” as members of DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump established by executive order — demanded access to sensitive Social Security systems, including files that contain beneficiaries’ banking information.

New management at the SSA called its workforce “.” But, under the previous administration, the agency was telling a starkly different story.

A year ago, O’Malley that, as the number of people receiving benefits increased, “historic underfunding and understaffing” at the agency had created a “service delivery crisis.”

Late last year, the agency provided data to Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News showing that in September its workforce was near a 50-year low. As of last month, applicants for disability benefits were waiting an average of more than seven months for a decision, according to the .

The staffing cuts will lead to more overpayments than ever and will make it harder for the people affected to clear up mistakes, said Jen Burdick, an attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia.

As Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group revealed in 2023, about 2 million people a year were receiving notices from the SSA that they were overpaid and owed money back.

People can appeal overpayment notices, request a lower withholding rate, or ask the SSA to waive collection altogether, the agency said. The SSA does not pursue recoveries while an initial appeal or waiver request is pending, it said.

Shortly before O’Malley left the SSA in November, the agency implemented changes that made it easier for beneficiaries to get overpayments waived. The agency for determining the beneficiary was not at fault — for instance, if the agency continued to issue overpayments after the beneficiary reported a change in their financial circumstances that should have led to a reduction in benefits. Those policy changes remain intact.

Several Republicans who expressed concern about clawbacks in the aftermath of 2023 news coverage did not respond to inquiries for this article or declined to comment. One of them was Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who is now chair of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging.

“Hardworking American taxpayers pay into Social Security all of their lives so that they can depend on it in the time they need it most,” Scott said in a 2023 . “The fact that the SSA’s actions are leaving some of them worse off, through no fault of their own, is absolutely unacceptable.”

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He promised to overhaul the Social Security Administration’s often heavy-handed efforts to claw back money that millions of recipients — including people who are living in poverty, are elderly, or have disabilities — were allegedly overpaid, as described by a Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group investigation last year.

“Innocent people can be badly hurt,” O’Malley said at the time.

Nearly eight months since he appeared before Congress and announced a series of policy changes, and with days left before he leaves the job, O’Malley’s effort to fix the system has made inroads but remains a work in progress.

For instance, one change, moving away from withholding 100% of people’s monthly Social Security benefits to recover alleged overpayments, has been a major improvement, say advocates for beneficiaries.

“It is a tremendous change,” said Kate Lang of Justice in Aging, who called it “life-changing for many people.”

The number of people from whom the Social Security Administration was withholding full monthly benefits to recoup money declined sharply — from about 46,000 in January to about 7,000 in September, the agency said.

Asked to clarify whether those numbers and others provided for this article covered all programs administered by the agency, the SSA press office did not respond.

Another potentially significant change — relieving beneficiaries of having to prove that an overpayment was not their fault — has not been implemented. The agency said it is working on that.

Meanwhile, the agency seems to be looking to Congress to take the lead on a change some observers see as crucial: limiting how far back the government can reach to recover an alleged overpayment.

Barbara Hubbell of Watkins Glen, New York, called the absence of a statute of limitations “despicable.” Hubbell said her mother was held liable for $43,000 because of an SSA error going back 19 years.

“In what universe is that even legal?” Hubbell said. Paying down the overpayment balance left her mother “essentially penniless,” she added.

In response to questions for this article, Social Security spokesperson Mark Hinkle said legislation is “the best and fastest way” to set a time limit.

Establishing a statute of limitations was not among the policy changes O’Malley announced in his March congressional testimony. In an interview at the time, he said he expected an announcement on it “within the next couple few months.” It could probably be done by regulation, without an act of Congress, he said.

Speaking generally, Hinkle said the agency has “made substantial progress on overpayments,” reducing the hardship they cause, and “continues to work diligently” to update policies.

The agency is underfunded, he added, is at a near 50-year low in staffing, and could do better with more employees. The SSA did not respond to requests for an interview with O’Malley.

O’Malley announced the policy changes after Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group jointly published and broadcast investigative reporting on the damage overpayments and clawbacks have done to millions of beneficiaries.

When O’Malley, a former Democratic governor of Maryland, presented his plans to three congressional committees in March, lawmakers greeted him with rare bipartisan praise. But the past several months have shown how hard it can be to turn around a federal bureaucracy that is massive, complex, deeply dysfunctional, and, as it says, understaffed.

Now O’Malley’s time is almost up. After this article was published Monday, and with two months left in his term, that he was of the Democratic National Committee.

Social Security spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann said O’Malley sent President Joe Biden a letter of resignation effective Nov. 29.

Lang of Justice in Aging, among the advocacy groups that have been meeting with O’Malley and other Social Security officials, said she appreciates how much the commissioner has achieved in a short time. But she added that O’Malley has “not been interested in hearing about our feelings that things have fallen short.”

One long-standing policy O’Malley set out to change involves the burden of proof. When the Social Security Administration alleges someone has been overpaid and demands the money back, the burden is on the beneficiary to prove they were not at fault.

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Cecilia Malone, 24, a beneficiary in Lithonia, Georgia, said she and her parents spent hundreds of hours trying to get errors corrected. “Why is the burden on us to ‘prove’ we weren’t overpaid?” Malone said.

It can be exceedingly difficult for beneficiaries to appeal a decision. The alleged overpayments, which can reach tens of thousands of dollars or more, often span years. And people struggling just to survive may have extra difficulty producing financial records from long ago.

What’s more, in letters demanding repayment, the government does not typically spell out its case against the beneficiary — making it hard to mount a defense.

Testifying before House and Senate committees in March, O’Malley promised to shift the burden of proof.

“That should be on the agency,” he said.

The agency expects to finalize “guidance” on the subject “in the coming months,” Hinkle said.

The agency points to reduced wait times and other improvements in a phone system known to leave beneficiaries on hold. “In September, we answered calls to our national 800 number in an average of 11 minutes — a tremendous improvement from 42 minutes one year ago,” Hinkle said.

Still, in response to a nonrepresentative survey by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group focused on overpayments, about half of respondents who said they contacted the agency by phone since April rated that experience as “poor,” and few rated it “good” or “excellent.”

The survey was sent to about 600 people who had contacted Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News to since September 2023. Almost 200 people answered the survey in September and October of this year.

Most of those who said they contacted the agency by mail since April rated their experience as “poor.”

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Jennifer Campbell, 60, a beneficiary in Nelsonville, Ohio, said in late October that she was still waiting for someone at the agency to follow up as described during a phone call in May.

“VERY POOR customer service!!!!!” Campbell wrote.

“Nearly impossible to get a hold of someone,” wrote Kathryn Duff of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who has been helping a disabled family member.

Letters from SSA have left Duff mystified. One was postmarked July 9, 2024, but dated more than two years earlier. Another, dated Aug. 18, 2024, said her family member was overpaid $31,635.80 in benefits from the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides money to people with or other resources who are disabled, blind, or at least 65. But Duff said her relative never received SSI benefits.

What’s more, for the dates in question, payments listed in the letter to back up the agency’s math didn’t come close to $31,635.80; they totaled about a quarter of that amount.

Regarding the 100% clawbacks, O’Malley in March said 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.”

He said that, starting March 25, if a beneficiary doesn’t respond to a new overpayment notice, the agency would default to withholding 10%. The agency warned of “a short transition period.”

That change wasn’t automated until June 25, Hinkle said.

The number of people newly placed in full withholding plummeted from 6,771 in February to 51 in September, according to data the agency provided.

SSA said it would notify recipients they could request reduced withholding if it was already clawing back more than 10% of their monthly checks.

Nonetheless, dozens of beneficiaries or their family members told Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group they hadn’t heard they could request reduced withholding. Among those who did ask, roughly half said their requests were approved.

According to the SSA, there has been almost a 20% decline in the number of people facing clawbacks of more than 10% but less than 100% of their monthly checks — from 141,316 as of March 8 to 114,950 as of Oct. 25, agency spokesperson Tiggemann said.

Meanwhile, the number of people from whom the agency was withholding exactly 10% soared more than fortyfold — from just over 5,000 to well over 200,000. And the number of beneficiaries having any partial benefits withheld to recover an overpayment increased from almost 600,000 to almost 785,000, according to data Tiggemann provided.

Lorraine Anne Davis, 72, of Houston, said she hasn’t received her monthly Social Security payment since June due to an alleged overpayment. Her Medicare premium was being deducted from her monthly benefit, so she’s been left to pay that out-of-pocket.

Davis said she’s going to need a kidney transplant and had been trying to save money for when she’d be unable to work.

A letter from the SSA dated April 8, 2024, two weeks after the new 10% withholding policy was slated to take effect, said it had overpaid her $13,538 and demanded she pay it back within 30 days.

Apparently, the SSA hadn’t accounted for a pension Davis receives from overseas; Davis said she disclosed it when she filed for benefits.

In a letter to her dated June 29, the agency said that, under its new policy, it would change the withholding to only 10% if she asked.

Davis said she asked by phone repeatedly, and to no avail.

“Nobody seems to know what’s going on” and “no one seems to be able to help you,” Davis said. “You’re just held captive.”

In October, the agency said she’d receive a payment — in March 2025.

Marley Presiado, a research assistant on the Public Opinion and Survey Research team at Â鶹ŮÓÅ, contributed to this report.

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[Update: This article was last revised at 4:45 p.m. ET on Nov. 18, 2024, to reflect that Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley has turned in his resignation. Also, the word “partial” was added to this sentence: “And the number of beneficiaries having any partial benefits withheld to recover an overpayment increased from almost 600,000 to almost 785,000, according to data Tiggemann provided.”]

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As a joint investigation by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations reported in September, the agency has harmed people it is supposed to help by reducing or halting benefit checks to recoup billions of dollars in payments it sent them but later said they should never have received.

Testifying at two Senate hearings on March 20, Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley said he is to address the problem.

Starting next week, O’Malley said, the agency will stop “that clawback cruelty” of intercepting 100% of a beneficiary’s monthly Social Security check if they fail to respond to a demand for repayment.

Instead, the agency will default to withholding 10% of the recipient’s monthly benefits to recoup the debt, he said.

That would have helped Denise Woods, a Savannah, Georgia, woman who ended up living in her car after the SSA clawed back her entire monthly benefit to recoup a $58,000 overpayment. The agency restored some of her benefits after Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News-CMG reported her story in December.

“People like Denise and others shouldn’t be penalized for situations they did not create,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said during one of the hearings. “I think it’s always important that we center the people as we discuss policy, remember the human face of the issues we talk about.”

On the question of who caused an overpayment — the beneficiary or someone at the agency — the burden of proof will shift from the beneficiary to the agency, O’Malley said.

The agency will make it much easier for people who believe they weren’t at fault or can’t repay the debt to seek a waiver, O’Malley said, which he later clarified means simplifying the form people must submit.

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O’Malley’s plan also includes making notices to beneficiaries easier to understand. Now, they’re “like Mad Libs designed by mad lawyers,” he testified.

In addition, the agency recently changed a policy to allow most beneficiaries to arrange repayment plans of as long as five years, up from three years, he said.

Millions of people a year have been hit with clawbacks, including retirees, people receiving Social Security disability benefits, and the poorest of the poor. The alleged debts can stretch back years or decades and reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.

At the end of the last fiscal year, uncollected overpayments totaled $23 billion.

In December, Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations obtained an internal agency document showing that more than 2 million Americans each year are subjected to overpayment demands, out of about 70 million beneficiaries.

O’Malley, a former Maryland governor who was sworn in as commissioner in December, had previewed his planned changes in a recent interview with Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News.

On Wednesday, he appeared before the Senate Special Committee on Aging in the morning and the Finance Committee in the afternoon.

In hours of testimony, O’Malley said nothing about one of the reforms he heralded in the interview: limiting how far back in time the agency can reach to recover overpayments.

In an interview between the hearings, O’Malley said, “That’s still being unpacked and may well require a change in regulation.” He said he expected an announcement within a few months.

O’Malley said he didn’t know how far back the limit would go but noted that other agencies tend to have a look-back period of four years.

Establishing a statute of limitations is one of the most important steps the government can take to address overpayments, Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, who has studied and written about clawbacks, said in an interview.

“If Social Security can’t figure out its mistakes within 18 months, it should be on them,” Kotlikoff said.

Having to repay a year and a half of benefits could cost people their homes, Kotlikoff said.

Rebecca Vallas, who has helped beneficiaries navigate overpayments as a legal aid attorney and has called for reform of clawbacks, said the steps O’Malley announced “are nothing short of historic.”

Shifting the burden of proof “is a dramatic change,” said David Camp, chief executive of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives. While a lot is riding on the details and how O’Malley’s plans are implemented, that change alone should lead to “a very different experience” for anyone challenging a clawback, Camp added.

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In the past, there has been a gap between what the agency says and what it does. O’Malley said 10% has been the default withholding rate in one of the Social Security programs, Supplemental Security Income. But Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group have found people whose entire SSI benefit checks were suspended on account of alleged overpayments.

The changes announced won’t apply automatically to people already on a repayment plan or whose monthly benefits are already being docked, O’Malley said outside the hearings. To take advantage of the new terms, beneficiaries would have to contact the agency and request relief, he said. The agency will notify people that they have that option, he added.

O’Malley implored lawmakers to increase funding for the agency. On average, customers trying to reach the agency by phone wait 38 minutes, he said. Most who call the 800 number “hang up in disgust after waiting far too long,” he said in written testimony.

Trouble getting through to anyone at the agency can contribute to overpayments and make it harder for recipients to resolve them.

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), chair of the Special Committee on Aging, said that unless Congress provides adequate funding for the agency, fixing problems “will be really difficult.”

Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana, the top Republican on that committee, called for looking at how the agency is run “before we throw more money at it.” He suggested focusing on what can be done to prevent overpayments “rather than forgiving them once they occur” or trying to claw them back, “which is insult on top of injury.”

O’Malley noted that the Social Security Administration recently on a long-delayed plan to reduce overpayments by automatically obtaining monthly wage and employment data on beneficiaries.

Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) praised O’Malley for tackling what Wyden called “the scourge of overpayments.”

“I think you’re really off to a strong start in terms of righting wrongs,” Wyden said.

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“I want to apologize for any confusion or misunderstanding during the October hearing,” acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi wrote in a letter dated Dec. 11.

Kijakazi sent the letter days after Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group reported that the agency has been demanding money back from more than 2 million people a year — more than twice as many as Kijakazi disclosed to a House panel at an Oct. 18 hearing.

The report was based on a Social Security document the news organizations obtained through a records request under the Freedom of Information Act.

“In my effort to be responsive to Committee questions on overpayment numbers, I provided a preliminary, unvetted and partial answer,” Kijakazi said in her apology letter.

“My goal — and SSA’s goal — is always to provide Congress with the most complete, accurate, and responsive information possible,” Kijakazi said. “We did not do that in this case and will use this experience to improve our communications with Congress going forward.”

In an interview before she sent the apology, Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) said Kijakazi “wasn’t being completely upfront” at the hearing, and he wondered whether the agency had “intentionally deflated the numbers.”

Meanwhile, in a Dec. 12 interview, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), said the agency had damaged its credibility by “not telling the truth.”

The hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security focused on the agency’s record of sending out billions of dollars of benefit payments that it later concludes it never should have paid — and then, sometimes years later, demanding the recipients pay the money back.

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The unexpected bills, which can total tens of thousands of dollars or more, can be devastating for the recipients. Many are disabled and struggling to get by on minimal incomes.

Until the hearing, the agency had not disclosed the number of people affected, making it harder for policymakers to assess the seriousness of the problem and what to do about it.

At the hearing, Rep. Mike Carey (R-Ohio) asked how many people a year are receiving overpayment notices.

Reading from a piece of paper, Kijakazi gave two precise numbers: 1,028,389 for the 2022 fiscal year and 986,912 for the 2023 fiscal year.

Under further questioning, she repeated the numbers.

She also said they were “under Social Security” and “for Social Security.”

After the hearing, Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group sent the Social Security press office several emails over a period of weeks asking for clarification: Did the numbers Kijakazi gave at the hearing represent all programs administered by the Social Security Administration, or just a subset?

SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann did not give a direct answer.

The news organizations filed the FOIA request for a copy of the document from which Kijakazi read the numbers at the hearing.

The document showed that Kijakazi did not tell House members the whole story.

She read numbers that included two benefit programs, but she repeatedly omitted numbers for a third program her agency administers under the Social Security Act. The numbers she omitted were bigger than the numbers she disclosed, and, on the piece of paper, they appeared directly below the numbers she disclosed.

She left out more than a million people a year.

More than seven weeks passed before she sent Congress the apology.

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“We should have followed up with additional context following the hearing,” she said in her letter. “I take seriously the commitment that all Federal officials make to provide the Congress with accurate information and I very much regret not contacting you with more information right away.”

Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group obtained a copy of the letter addressed to Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), chair of the Ways and Means’ Subcommittee on Social Security, and a copy sent to a Democratic member of the committee.

Asked which members of Congress were sent the letter, Tiggemann said in an email, “The correspondence was between Acting Commissioner Kijakazi and members of the committee.”

Tiggemann did not respond to a request for an interview with Kijakazi.

In her letter, Kijakazi essentially disavowed the numbers she gave the committee. She said the agency is trying to make sure it has “the right data to make meaningful improvements.”

“We are committed to sharing this data with the Committee and the public,” she wrote, “as soon as it is fully vetted.”

Addressing overpayment problems — and communicating with Congress about them — will soon be someone else’s responsibility.

The evening of Dec. 18, the Senate voted 50 to 11 to confirm former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) as commissioner of Social Security.

At his confirmation hearing in November, O’Malley said he would “absolutely prioritize” reducing overpayments and overhauling the appeals process for people asked to repay money.

“It’s been heartbreaking reading some of these stories” of people who face government collection efforts “through no fault of their own” and “without regard” for their circumstances, O’Malley said.

“We have to do a better job of recognizing the justice at stake in each of these individual cases,” O’Malley, a former presidential candidate, said at the hearing.

O’Malley said he would emphasize improving customer service, measuring results, and disclosing data.

Instead of hoarding information, he said, “you need to share information openly and transparently.”

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The Social Security Administration assured lawmakers in the past that it had been addressed, but “what you all found in your reporting is that the problem hadn’t been fixed,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in an interview.

Wyden was referring to an ongoing investigation by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations reporting how the agency has been issuing billions of dollars in overpayments — benefits it claims people never should have received — and then, sometimes years later, demanding they pay the money back.

“Millions of these individuals are walking an economic tightrope, balancing their food bill against the fuel bill, the fuel bill against the rent bill,” Wyden said. “And they have one of these overpayments and it just hits them like a wrecking ball.”

Meanwhile, congressional legislation that would raise asset limits for millions of Social Security recipients for the first time in decades has been gaining support.

The amounts the agency alleges people owe the government often total tens of thousands of dollars. The recipients include many of the nation’s most vulnerable — people who are disabled and have minimal savings and incomes. Often the overpayments result from errors or lapses on the part of the Social Security Administration.

The agency has been sending overpayment notices to more than 2 million people a year, according to a government document Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and CMG obtained through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. The notices typically ask recipients to repay the government within 30 days. They also explain how to appeal or request that the government waive the debt.

The Finance Committee oversees Social Security. Wyden spoke with Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and CMG on Dec. 12 in his first interview with the news organizations since they began reporting on Social Security overpayments and clawbacks months ago. He was elaborating on a statement the committee posted last week.

“As the point person for getting this fixed, I’m committing to getting this turned around,” Wyden said.

“Your reporting has just been invaluable in terms of kind of opening up a lot of visibility and awareness to something that needs to be fixed.”

Wyden is co-sponsor of a Senate bill that would address one of the root causes of overpayments.

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In the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides monthly checks to people who have little or no income or assets and are over 65 or disabled, asset limits for beneficiaries haven’t been adjusted since the 1980s. Those limits stand at $2,000 for individuals and $3,000 for couples.

The bill, spearheaded by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), to $10,000 and $20,000, respectively, and adjust them for inflation in the future.

The bill has seven other , including recent additions Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Chief executives of several major Wall Street firms, including Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, expressed support for the bill at a recent hearing, .

At a September news conference on Capitol Hill, a representative of JPMorgan Chase, which also backs the proposal, said the asset limits often prevent employees from participating in a 401(k) retirement plan to which the firm makes matching contributions.

A in the House of Representatives has 10 lawmakers behind it.

“With growing bipartisan support in Congress and among the business and faith communities, we have a good chance to finally get this done,” Brown said in a statement for this article.

Legislation to raise the asset limits could be included in a government funding bill early next year, Brown spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said.

Wyden said he hopes the legislation becomes a campaign issue in the election year and that candidates are asked whether they support it.

The monthly meetings with the Social Security Administration will begin when a new commissioner is in place, Wyden said. President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the agency, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), cleared the Finance Committee and is awaiting a confirmation vote by the full Senate.

In a recent hearing, O’Malley said accounts of people facing clawbacks were “heartbreaking” and promised to make the issue a priority.

Wyden said he expects the oversight meetings will include the top Republican on the Finance Committee, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho.

A spokesperson for Crapo, Mandi Critchfield, said he “is committed to addressing the overpayments issue, and looks forward to working with Senator Wyden to conduct proper oversight.”

One of the goals for those meetings, Wyden said, is to find out whether the agency can do more about overpayments using the legal powers it already has, including the authority to waive debts.

Wyden said he has discussed Social Security overpayments and clawbacks with officials at the White House.

In the interview, Wyden also addressed a recent report by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and CMG that, according to the results of a public records request, the SSA has been sending overpayment notices to over a million more people a year than the agency’s acting commissioner, Kilolo Kijakazi, disclosed at an October House hearing.

“When you have Social Security officials not telling the truth — and that’s how I would characterize that report on the number of people for whom there was actually a problem — it really damages this incredibly important program’s credibility,” Wyden said.

The news organizations obtained a copy of a piece of paper from which Kijakazi read aloud some numbers but not others at the October hearing.

SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann said last week the agency could not confirm the accuracy of the counts — those Kijakazi presented at the hearing and those she left out.

Meanwhile, senior Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee issued a statement this week on overpayments and clawbacks.

“Recent news reports have highlighted that the harm and unfairness Social Security beneficiaries experience after unknowingly being overpaid is more widespread than previously thought,” Reps. John B. Larson of Connecticut and Danny K. Davis of Illinois said.

Larson is the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, and Davis is the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Work and Welfare.

“The need for action is clear,” they said. “There must be a fundamental overhaul of Social Security’s overpayment process – one that puts seniors and Americans with severe disabilities first.”

While the government is at fault for some overpayments, others result from beneficiaries failing to comply with requirements, intentionally or otherwise. That can include failing to keep the SSA updated about items such as earnings, assets, and in-kind support — for example, whether family members are giving the beneficiary food or a place to stay.

Systemic problems also contribute.

The SSA has relied on manual systems, and those are subject to human error.

Rules are complex and difficult for SSA staff and beneficiaries alike to follow.

People who receive yet try to work can easily run afoul of restrictions not only on how much they are allowed to save but also on how much they are allowed to earn. For individuals who aren’t blind, the is $1,470.

The SSA relies heavily on beneficiaries to report changes in income, assets, and the like. For instance, the agency has been slow to implement systems that would automatically tap payroll data from outside sources.

Beneficiaries and advocates for Social Security recipients say the agency frequently loses information they submit. Getting through to humans at the agency can be extremely difficult, they say. Wait times are long, and calls get dropped.

O’Malley, the nominee for commissioner, recently told the Senate Finance Committee that the agency has a “.”

“The current wait times, backlogs, and delays are simply unacceptable,” O’Malley wrote.

The agency has cited staffing and funding. In the 2023 fiscal year, “we began to rebuild our workforce after ending FY 2022 with the lowest staffing level in 25 years,” the acting commissioner said in an October statement to a congressional subcommittee.

The agency closed field offices during the pandemic. That made it more difficult for beneficiaries to communicate with the SSA, and it caused problems to pile up.

The agency checks benefits retrospectively, which , researchers at the Urban Institute have said.

Regardless of who was originally at fault, by the time the SSA issues an overpayment notice, years can pass and the alleged overpayment total can balloon.

Under federal law, the agency must try to recover overpaid amounts, Kijakazi said in her October statement, and there is no statute of limitations. To collect debts, the SSA can reach back decades and across generations.

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That’s according to a document Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Kilolo Kijakazi read aloud from the document during the hearing but repeatedly left out an entire category of beneficiaries displayed on the paper as well.

The document indicates the fallout from Social Security overpayments and clawbacks is much wider than Kijakazi acknowledged under direct questioning from a House Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the federal agency.

In a statement for this article, SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann described the numbers of people Kijakazi provided in her testimony and those she left out as “unverified.”

“We cannot confirm the accuracy of the information, and we have informed the committee,” Tiggemann said.

The numbers “were gathered quickly,” the spokesperson said. Social Security systems “were not designed to easily determine this information,” she said.

After the October hearing, Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group sent Tiggemann several emails asking her to clarify whether the annual numbers Kijakazi gave to Congress included all Social Security programs or just a subset. She would not say.

For answers, the news organizations several weeks ago filed a FOIA request.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), a member of the subcommittee, said in an interview that he wondered if the agency “intentionally deflated the numbers to not make it look as bad as it is.”

“Maybe we should have her come back in for another hearing, put her under oath,” and ask her “why she wasn’t being completely upfront about the numbers,” Steube said.

Steube said that, when he heard Kijakazi’s testimony, he thought she was giving the subcommittee the complete numbers.

At issue is the scope of a problem that has terrified many Social Security beneficiaries and plunged them into financial distress.

As Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations jointly reported in September, the government has been trying to recover billions of dollars from beneficiaries it says it overpaid. In many cases, the overpayments were the government’s fault.

But, even in cases where the beneficiary failed to comply with requirements, years can pass before the government catches the mistake and sends a notice demanding repayment, often within 30 days. In the meantime, the amount the beneficiary owes the government can grow to tens of thousands of dollars or more — far more than people living month to month could likely repay.

The people affected may be retired, disabled, or struggling to get by on only minimal income.

The number of people experiencing overpayments is important to know because overpayments can cause a lot of harm, said Kathleen Romig of the , who worked in research at the Social Security Administration and has since spent 20 years in the field of Social Security policy.

“It should be a very high priority at the agency to produce more reliable numbers,” Romig said.

The Social Security Administration has long quantified overpayments in dollars rather than numbers of people affected. For example, the agency’s latest says it recovered more than $4.9 billion in overpayments in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 and ended that period with a cumulative uncollected overpayment balance of $23 billion.

In September, SSA’s Tiggemann said, “We do not report on the number of debtors.”

In subsequent interviews with the news organizations, some lawmakers said the agency owed the public that information. “If they’re not telling you, I can assure you that’s a question that I’m going to ask in a hearing,” said Rep. Mike Carey of Ohio, the No. 2 Republican on the subcommittee.

At an , Carey brought up the number of debtors and told Kijakazi, “I think it’s something that we really need to get to the bottom of.”

Then he asked, “Do we have a number of how many people have been impacted by these overpayments?”

“We do,” Kijakazi replied. “And I’m, I looked at that before I came. I’m, I’m sorry. I’m not thinking of the number right now. But I can provide that.”

Carey pressed further.

“How many people are receiving overpayment notices in a year?” he asked.

At that point, Tom Klouda, a deputy SSA commissioner, got up from his seat behind Kijakazi and handed her a piece of paper.

Reading from the page, she gave two precise numbers: 1,028,389 for the 2022 fiscal year and 986,912 for the 2023 fiscal year.

When Carey asked if 986,912 “individuals were getting these letters in the mail saying that there was an overpayment and that they needed to contact you guys and set up a payment plan,” Kijakazi said, “That’s right.”

“Seems like an awful lot,” Carey said.

Under further questioning from Carey, Kijakazi repeated the numbers. She said they were “under Social Security” and “for Social Security.”

Subsequently, the agency declined to clarify what Kijakazi meant by that. Replying to a series of emails, Tiggemann would not say whether the numbers included all the Social Security programs.

Instead, she implied the agency didn’t know.

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“Again, our overpayment systems were not designed to easily determine the information you’re requesting,” she wrote on Nov. 29.

The document obtained via FOIA shows that the numbers Kijakazi gave at the hearing covered only two of the three Social Security benefit programs. They did not cover Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, which provides financial support for people who have little or no income or assets and are blind, otherwise disabled, or at least 65 years old.

On the paper that the deputy commissioner handed Kijakazi, overpayment counts for SSI appeared directly below the numbers she read aloud, and they were bigger: 1,118,648 people in fiscal 2022 and 1,189,642 in fiscal 2023.

The document is titled in part, “Overpayment Basic Facts.”

In the document, the numbers Kijakazi read at the hearing, which round to about 1 million people a year, are labeled “T2.” Title II of the Social Security Act covers two programs: Disability Insurance, or DI, and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, or OASI.

The numbers Kijakazi omitted are labeled “T16.” Title XVI of the Social Security Act covers SSI.

Within the Social Security Administration, personnel use the term T16 when referring to SSI and T2 when referring to OASI and DI combined, said Romig, the former agency researcher.

It’s possible that some people who received overpayment notices through SSI also received notices through the other programs, leading to overlap between the numbers Kijakazi read at the hearing and those she didn’t provide, Romig said.

In the 2023 fiscal year, the agency paid SSI benefits to an average of 7.5 million recipients a month. Measured in dollars, the overpayment rate in SSI has been running about 8%, according to the agency’s latest annual financial report. That’s much higher than the half a percent overpayment rate for OASI and DI combined.

A written statement Kijakazi submitted to the House subcommittee included a clue that the numbers of people she gave the committee didn’t provide a complete picture. In the statement, dated Oct. 18, Kijakazi used the term “the Social Security program itself” to describe Disability Insurance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance — but not SSI.

A the Ways and Means Committee issued after the hearing made no such distinction. “One Million Americans a Year Affected by Social Security’s Improper Payment Highlights Need for Reform,” it said.

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The document obtained via FOIA included other new information. It showed that relatively few beneficiaries contest overpayment notices and that many appeals or requests for waivers fail.

Weeks after Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and CMG television stations published and broadcast the first stories in their series, the Social Security chief ordered a review of overpayments.

In her statement Dec. 5, the agency spokesperson said that, as part of the review, the Social Security Administration is “looking at how best to inform the Agency, the public, and Congress about this workload.”

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Two members of a Senate panel that oversees Social Security to the agency’s acting commissioner, Kilolo Kijakazi, urging her to do more to prevent overpayments and “limit harm to vulnerable beneficiaries” when trying to recover the money.

As Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations jointly reported in September, the Social Security Administration routinely sends notices to beneficiaries saying they received benefits to which they weren’t entitled — and demanding they pay the government back, often within 30 days.

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In the 2022 federal fiscal year, for example, the agency sent overpayment notices to more than 1 million people, Kijakazi told Congress in mid-October.

Alleged overpayments can continue for years before the government notifies a recipient and seeks repayment. By then, the amount a beneficiary allegedly owes the government can reach tens of thousands of dollars or more. People living check to check likely would have spent the money.

To recoup money owed, the government can reduce or stop people’s monthly benefit checks.

“[W]e have been deeply concerned by stories from our constituents and recent reports of the extreme financial hardship placed upon beneficiaries who are asked to quickly repay in full or whose payments are halted, reduced, or reclaimed as the agency attempts to correct improper payments, many of which occurred due to agency error,” Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) wrote in a Nov. 28 letter to Kijakazi.

Citing the news organizations’ reporting, the senators asked what Kijakazi is doing to prevent harm to beneficiaries and what Congress can do.

Hassan and Cassidy are on the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy.

Meanwhile, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) sent Kijakazi a letter on Nov. 17 calling the

“If anyone intentionally defrauded the system or lied to receive payments at other taxpayers’ expense, they should absolutely be held accountable and repay this debt to taxpayers,” Scott wrote. “But it’s completely wrong for the federal government to go after well-intentioned Americans who did all the right things and trusted that their government was doing the right thing, too.”

Many of the people affected are disabled, low-income, or both and are enrolled in the Social Security Administration’s Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income programs.

In the 2022 fiscal year, the agency issued an estimated $4.6 billion in SSI overpayments, which represented 8% of payments in that program, according to the agency’s latest .

Kijakazi recently told a House subcommittee the 8% was “a small percentage.”

In other programs administered by the agency, there were an estimated $6.5 billion in overpayments in fiscal 2022, which amounted to one-half of 1%. Kijakazi called that overpayment rate “extremely low.”

During the 2023 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, the agency recovered $4.9 billion in overpayments, according to a by Social Security’s inspector general. At the end of that period, an additional $23 billion of accumulated overpayments remained uncollected, the statement said.

Since Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group TV stations published and broadcast news reports on overpayment clawbacks in September, several members of the House and Senate have written to the Social Security Administration calling for change or answers.

“Many of these overpayment notices come as a complete surprise to SSA beneficiaries, leaving them confused, shocked, and scared that they cannot pay what SSA says they owe,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and Senate candidate, said in . “And, because of an indefinite ‘look-back period’, SSA can collect funds from a recipient for an error going back decades,” he added.

Asked about the latest letters from lawmakers, Social Security spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann said the agency “will respond directly to the requestors.”

Kijakazi said in October that she ordered a “top-to-bottom” review of how the agency handles overpayments.

Under federal law, the agency must seek recovery of overpaid amounts unless circumstances warrant waiving the debts, Kijakazi said in to Congress. There’s no time limit on efforts to collect the debts, she said.

In their letter to the acting commissioner, Cassidy and Hassan asked what the agency is doing to make it less burdensome for beneficiaries to appeal or seek a waiver when an overpayment is the government’s fault.

In response to questions for this article, Tiggemann, the Social Security spokesperson, said, “We will examine our policies and procedures — including our regulations — to determine where administrative updates to the overpayment recovery and waiver process may reduce the complexity and burden for the people we serve.”

Scott, the Florida Republican, asked if the review Kijakazi announced in October would be disclosed to the public. In a written response to questions for this article, the Social Security spokesperson didn’t say.

Samantha Manning of CMG’s Washington news bureau contributed to this report.

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As of Oct. 1, the SSA had an uncollected balance of $23 billion in overpayments — money the agency had determined it mistakenly paid to beneficiaries across the country but had not been able to claw back, despite repeated attempts to do so.

In September, a series of investigative reports by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations and shared the experiences of dozens of people who’ve received letters from the federal agency demanding repayment, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars. At the beginning of fiscal year 2023, the agency’s uncollected balance of overpayments was $21.6 billion.

Its latest “ also revealed that the SSA made approximately $11.1 billion in new overpayments to beneficiaries during federal fiscal year 2022, the most recent year of data available. That figure represents more than a 65% increase from overpayments made the previous year. For the past several years, the agency routinely distributed between $6 billion and $7 billion in new overpayments each year.

The report shows the majority of the 2022 overpayments occurred within the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) programs, an estimated $6.5 billion. Those programs provide retirement and survivors’ benefits to qualified workers and their families, or support workers who become disabled and their families.

In prior years, most of the overpayments occurred within the Supplemental Security Income program, which provides financial support to aged, blind, and disabled adults and children who have limited income and resources. In 2022, overpayments within the SSI program topped $4.6 billion, which is similar to previous years.

The SSA had not yet responded to a request for an explanation of the significant increase in overpayments within OASDI.

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The report said $1.6 billion of the OASDI overpayments and $287 million of the SSI overpayments were within the agency’s control, meaning they weren’t the beneficiaries’ fault.

In recent weeks, beneficiaries have told Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News-Cox Media Group TV reporters they were receiving too much money in their monthly checks until they received a letter from Social Security demanding repayment, often within 30 days.

“I almost threw up when I opened that letter,” said Lori, a Florida woman who didn’t want to publicly disclose her last name. She received a notice saying she owed $121,000, a debt she said was later erased following a multiyear fight with the SSA.

The notices often the alleged overpayments occur and, by that time, the money owed can balloon to dollar amounts impossible for beneficiaries to repay.

“It’s just scary to my husband and me. Where are we supposed to come up with this money?” Ohio resident Tammy Eichler .

When beneficiaries can’t repay the money, the agency may lower their monthly benefit checks, even when the overpayments were the government’s fault. 

“Taking that benefit away from me will make me homeless,” Florida resident Jesse Greatorex

SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann said the SSA is required by law to attempt to recover overpayments once they are detected.

“We will be doing a to see how we can further reduce the error rate,” said SSA acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi, who directed an agency-wide review of overpayment policies and procedures following the reporting by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group TV stations in September.

Members of the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing in October, citing the joint reporting and demanding answers from Kijakazi regarding the number of people affected by overpayments and what the agency plans to do to address the problem.

A group of senators also wrote to Kijakazi asking about overpayments caused by government-issued stimulus checks during the covid-19 pandemic. Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group TV stations profiled beneficiaries who believe the against their asset limit, in violation of SSA policy.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and other members of Congress are considering several legislative changes that could make it easier for people to avoid overpayments: for example, raising the cap on how much money they’re allowed to save.

“I want [the legislation] to fix the people that it’s already happened to. I want it to stop it from happening in the future,” Brown

Ohio resident Addie Arnold, who cares for her disabled niece and received a letter saying they owed the government more than $60,000, wrote to the SSA saying, “I truly do hope and pray that she is allowed to stay on SSI … because she has to continue to live and without it, she will be in a very bad place.”

“Social Security should be to help people, not to destroy them,”

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At his confirmation hearing on Thursday, Democratic former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said he would “absolutely prioritize” reducing overpayments and improving the appeals process for millions of people asked to repay money, often years later.

At least seven senators identified overpayments as a key concern during hours of questioning at Thursday’s hearing and asked O’Malley about how he would address the issue. Several committee members have cited joint investigations by Â鶹ŮÓÅ Health News and Cox Media Group television stations, which reported the scope of the overpayment problem; how retired, disabled, and low-income beneficiaries have been affected; and the broad range of issues that can cause overpayments.

“It’s been heartbreaking reading some of these stories” of people who face government collection efforts “through no fault of their own” and “without regard” for their circumstances, O’Malley said.

“I am deeply concerned about the burden placed on individuals when the Social Security Administration works to recoup payments that the agency made because of its own errors,” Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) told O’Malley. “We have constituents who are reaching out all the time to share that they’re struggling to make ends meet because SSA has unexpectedly and drastically reduced their benefits.”

Beneficiaries routinely receive demands for repayment long after they have spent the money.

Many of the overpayments are the result of beneficiaries’ failure to comply with federal requirements. But others are the result of errors by the Social Security Administration. Complex, hard-to-follow rules contribute to the problem. And beneficiaries often struggle to respond to overpayment notices because they have trouble reaching Social Security employees by phone.

“We need to correct that,” said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who raised the issue during the hearing.

O’Malley added that Social Security’s attempts to claw back overpayments that were the result of covid relief payments were “an outrage,” and he pledged to correct it.

The agency frequently overpays people for months or years before catching the mistake. By then the amount to repay can balloon into tens of thousands of dollars. To recoup alleged overpayments, the Social Security Administration often reduces or suspends beneficiaries’ monthly benefits.

“We have to do a better job of recognizing the justice at stake in each of these individual cases,” O’Malley said.

Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told of a severely disabled constituent who is unable to work, lives with her parents, and pays them half of her benefits from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program each month as rent. The constituent was recently notified that she owes the government more than $9,000, Wyden said, because she still received a rental subsidy from her parents.

Wyden said he and other senators have proposed legislation “to friggin’ simplify the program and reduce these overpayments.”

Under questioning by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), O’Malley agreed that limits on the amount of assets beneficiaries are allowed to hold are root causes of overpayments. The limits, which haven’t been increased for inflation since the 1980s, stand at $2,000 for individuals and $3,000 for couples.

“It’s a leading cause and it’s a huge administrative burden,” O’Malley said.

Legislation proposed by Brown and others to raise the asset limits “would absolutely not only be the right thing to do for the recipients, the right policy,” O’Malley said, “but would also reduce the huge administrative burden that Social Security has to go through.”

Samantha Manning of CMG’s Washington news bureau contributed to this report.

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