When there is an overpayment, recipients have to pay back the money they owe to Social Security. This usually happens when beneficiaries do not share updated information with the Administration.
Therefore, Social Security cannot calculate the exact or right amount and may pay more than you should receive. On other occasions, the information you provide the Administration is wrong.
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If you have received an overpayment notice from Social Security, they will tell you the amount of money you owe them and why. Despite this mistake, SSA claims that their payment accuracy rates are high.
WHAT IS THE PERCENTAGE OF BENEFICIARIES THAT GOT A SOCIAL SECURITY OVERPAYMENT?
According to the SSA press release in October, about 0.5% of their payments are overpayments. What is more, they also claim that SSI overpayments are higher because of the difficulty in assessing income and resources.
In fact, the SSI overpayment rate is about 8%. Anyway, they believe these figures are low because they pay approximately $1.4 trillion in Social Security benefits. Besides, they have to deal with over 71 million recipients.
Apart from that, beneficiaries should always report changes in their marital status, and earnings, among others. Since they fail to inform the Administration, the number of overpayments increase.
Kilolo Kijakazi, the Acting Commissioner of Social Security stated that they are reviewing overpayment procedures. In this way, they will be able to improve and reduce the overpayment rates.
The law allows the Administration to waive the recovery in certain cases. If there is no waiver, they can adjust benefits or recover the amount of money the recipient owes.
Of course, you can appeal if you believe that there was no overpayment. Make sure you report any relevant changes that may affect your benefits amounts before there is an overpayment that you cannot afford.