Commissioner Martin O’Malley testifies to two Senate panels that his agency will stop the “injustices” of suspending people’s monthly benefits to recover alleged overpayments. The burden will be on the Social Security Administration to prove the beneficiary was to blame.
New Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley is promising to change how the agency reclaims billions of dollars it wrongly pays to beneficiaries, saying the existing process is “cruel-hearted and mindless.”
The Social Security Administration is reclaiming billions of dollars in alleged overpayments from some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable, leaving some people homeless or struggling to stay in housing, beneficiaries and advocates say.
Acting Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi sent the letter days after KFF Health News and Cox Media Group reported that the agency has been demanding money back from more than twice as many people as she’d disclosed in October testimony.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, vowed to meet monthly with Social Security officials until the problems surrounding overpayment demands are fixed.
More than 2 million people a year have been sent notices that Social Security overpaid them and demanding they repay the money. That’s twice as many as the head of Social Security disclosed at a congressional hearing in October.
In the wake of a KFF Health News-Cox Media Group investigation, U.S. lawmakers are asking what Social Security will do about its demands on their constituents to repay money already distributed — and sometimes in error. Sen. Rick Scott called the agency’s actions “unacceptable.”
Social Security has been overpaying recipients for years, then demanding the money back, leaving people with bills for up to tens of thousands of dollars or more.
At a Senate confirmation hearing, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said he would address hardships the Social Security agency has caused by demanding money back from beneficiaries.
