Messenger - Millions of disabled and retired Americans may have to pay back a chunk of their Social Security checks as the government investigates how and why it overpaid some beneficiaries. The Social Security Administration said Wednesday it was assembling a team to assess what it had previously disclosed was $21.6 billion in overpayments that hadn't been reimbursed by recipients. By federal law, the agency is required to reduce a recipient’s future checks or recover any money owed to the government. Many recipients are likely to be elderly, poor, and/or disabled, and thus have little, if any, means of paying the money back. Most overpayments are the agency’s fault, and recipients may not realize the error. Only a fraction of a percent of all overpayments are due to fraud.
Many overpayments occur when a disabled person who can’t perform full-time work holds a part-time job, the Urban Institute said in March. It cited research showing that 71% of beneficiaries who get Social Security due to a disability received overpayments, with the median extra amount being $9,282. Regular beneficiaries “experience smaller but more frequent overpayments,” the think tank said.
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