Michigan Senators Want the Social Security Administration to Fix Problems with Overpayments!
Cybersecdn– Lawmakers want the Social Security Administration to fix the problem of mistaken overpayments that are making it hard for many Social Security users to pay their bills. 13 FOR YOU I’ve talked to a lot of people in West Michigan who were told by the Social Security Administration that they owed thousands of dollars back because of mistakes the agency made.
Dan Calkins, a soldier from Greenville, got a letter from the Social Security Administration in 2022 telling him he owed $37,556 in back pay. It’s not like Calkins’ family has an extra $37,000 to give back to the SSA.
A woman from Kalamazoo who has a disability found out she had been given too many benefits and would have to pay the SSA $100,000 back. Social Security payments are given to more than 71 million Americans, including 2 million people from Michigan.
People with low incomes, disabilities, aging, and other vulnerable groups are often the ones who use these benefits the most. Recent reports, including ones from 13 ON YOUR SIDE, have shown that the number of wrong overpayments to recipients is going up. This is usually because the agency made a mistake or forgot to do something.
Overpayments often built up over several years before the SSA noticed it was making mistakes with its payments. The total cost of these mistakes is at least tens of thousands of dollars.
Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, two U.S. senators, said that this problem has caused a lot of financial trouble for a lot of households. They say that the recipients are being asked to quickly repay the overpayments in full, or their payments are being stopped or greatly reduced while the agency tries to fix the mistakes.
Together, they wrote a message to the SSA asking it to explain how it plans to fix these problems, make payments more accurate, and make sure Americans get their benefits.
“Many people in Michigan have told us about how the unexpected overpayments from the SSA have hurt some of the most vulnerable people who get Social Security. These people are often the elderly, disabled, retirees, and others who are struggling to get by on a small amount of money and resources,” the senators wrote.
It can be very hard for people who didn’t do anything wrong but are now responsible for returning improper payments because they were overpaid. Because they are so bad, the agency needs to improve its processes and controls to cut down on the number of overpayments to people who depend on these important benefits. The SSA has been giving out more than $6 billion in new overpayments every year for the past few years.
The SSA’s most recent financial report shows that during fiscal year 2022 alone, the agency gave more than $11 billion in extra payments to people who get Social Security or SSI. In the past few years, there have been more overpayments, and now the agency asks more than 2 million Americans each year to return the money they were given. A message from the Social Security Administration in October 2023 said the following.
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“Everyone’s situation is different, and the agency deals with overpayments one at a time.” People can challenge, for example, if they don’t agree that they were overpaid or think the amount is wrong. If they think they shouldn’t have to pay back the money, they can ask the service not to collect the overpayment. You have an unlimited amount of time to submit a release.
