ATLANTA — Beginning Friday, the Social Security Administration will once again collect 100% of a recipient’s monthly check to pay back an overpayment.
The Social Security Administration changed how it collected overpayments after a series of Channel 2 Action News investigations exposed problems with its policies.
Now, the Trump Administration is overturning those changes in how SSA claws back overpayments.
In a statement, SSA said it will increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security beneficiaries to 100% of a person’s monthly benefit. That percentage had been cut to 10% last year.
In a confirmation hearing this week for President Trump’s pick to head SSA, Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy expressed concerns about the change.
“It’s one thing for somebody who’s well off to pay back, and it’s another thing for someone who basically lives on cash flow and then you’re asked to repay that, which has, you know, been spent,” Cassidy said.
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But the Trump administration said it can save as much as $7 billion over the next decade by withholding 100% of monthly checks instead of 10%.
“We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people. It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security.
But President Trump’s nominee to head SSA permanently, Frank Bisignano, left open the possibility of further changes when questioned by Senator Cassidy.
“I know there was one way to do it. We’ve implemented another. I’m going to make sure that we recover all the money we should recover. But on the other hand, we have to be humans in the process, too,” Bisignano testified.
In a series of Channel 2 Action News investigations in partnership with KFF Health News and our Cox Media Group sister stations, we heard from more than 400 families who have gotten demand letters from the Social Security Administration asking them to pay back thousands - or even tens of thousands of dollars.
Often, the mistakes were not their fault, but SSA’s.
For three months this winter, Social Security withheld 100% of Barrow County resident Latricia Fortner’s monthly Social Security check, her only income.
“Family and Children Services upped my food stamps, but that wasn’t paying my utilities or my rent,” Fortner said.
SSA said she was overpaid because she took out a life insurance policy to cover her future funeral costs.
“I don’t want people to go through what I went through,” she said.
The new plan to completely withhold monthly benefits from recipients who were allegedly overpaid does not extend to the Supplemental Security Income program, one of two Social Security programs for people with disabilities. SSI, as the agency explains, covers “people with disabilities and older adults who have little or no income or resources.”
As Channel 2 Action News and KFF Health News revealed in 2023, about 2 million people a year were receiving notices from the SSA that they were overpaid and owed money back. This change should affect about half of those, around 1 million people per year.
People can appeal overpayment notices, request a lower withholding rate, or ask the SSA to waive collection altogether, the agency said.
The SSA does not pursue recoveries while an initial appeal or waiver request is pending, it said.
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