📋 SSA to Withhold Benefits to Recoup Overpayments (AARP Article)

[SpringIsHereVA]

FROM THE ARTICLE: Social Security to Withhold Benefits to Recoup Overpayments.

SSA restores policy of cutting off payments to correct past errors.

By Andy Markowitz, AARP.

Published March 12, 2025.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) doesn’t make payment errors often — less than 1 percent of the time, according to agency data. But when it does pay a beneficiary more than they’re entitled to receive, the SSA is legally required to get the money back.

For some beneficiaries, that could soon mean temporarily losing their entire Social Security income.

USE LINK BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE: https://www.aarp.org/social-security/withhold-benefits-recoup-overpayments.html

[GailL1]

Even after the Office of the Inspector Generals’ report in 2024 - the previous administration evidently didn’t think it was all that big of a deal.

OIG.ssa.gov 08/19/2024 IG Reports: Nearly $72 Billion Improperly Paid; Recommended Improvements Go U... 

[jrpcs53]

I experienced this situation when SSA failed to discontinue my Spousal Benefit when I qualified for my full benefit at age 70.  Despite notifying them MONTHLY that they were sending me two benefits per month....I was told it might take a YEAR before SSA caught up with its error, and I could do nothing to correct it.  So now, instead of accepting their responsibility for creating such situations, will the new administration penalize those forced to watch this farce play out?  There is a need for some common sense in getting these situations addressed ASAP and corrected.  I was faced with a 30 day demand for the tens of thousands that had been sent to me despite my protests and a threat of stopping ALL my benefits despite my demands they stop sending the duplicate payments.  Imagine what that is going to look like with the drastic staffing cuts being demanded by Trump and Elon.

[GailL1]

@jrpcs53 

That’s the purpose of this new procedure - actually it is the old one that was changed by the Biden Administration - they want to find the errors fast and collect them fast.  

There was huge backlog of errors in 2024 and many of them went back a long ways - sometimes decades.  That when the previous administration created the 10% payback rate rather than taking it all at one time.  

From what you reported here, there is no excuse for that type of error happening and then to be reported by you and nothing happened until they got around to it - not good.  That was a very easy one to correct.  Hopefully you did not spend it and it was there when they asked you to pay it back.

The ones that are harder to find are the in the disability programs - SSDI and SSI - when any self-reporting of income, income and assets or change in their disability status isn’t reported or not reported in the time allotted.  Those get rather complicated.  As well as the Survivors benefits when they come to an end for say a minor dependent but people just keep getting them, spending them and then they are hard to collect.

But maybe this new procedure will turn things around and collecting the overpayments can be collected FAST. 

[SpringIsHereVA]

[Thursday 3/13/25] Wow @jrpcs53 , I wonder how many more people are in your position!!! THEY really need to get their s.it together.  😤

YOU WROTE:  I experienced this situation when SSA failed to discontinue my Spousal Benefit when I qualified for my full benefit at age 70.

Take care,

Nicole  👵