The policies of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to collect overpayments currently create serious hardship for people struggling to afford the basic necessities. There is extensive latitude within the Social Security Act for SSA to do a better job at waiving overpayments or making repayment less onerous for people with modest incomes, for the vast majority of overpayments that were not caused by fraud or intentional fault.
The first part of this memo outlines the problems with SSA’s overpayment policies, including a summary of the most common causes of overpayments with stories about beneficiary experiences with overpayments. We then turn to solutions within SSA’s statutory authority that would address some of these problems, with details on ways SSA can and should do more to prevent overpayments; how the agency should use its statutory waiver authority much more broadly, automate waivers as much as possible, and reduce barriers to apply for and be granted waivers; and finally for those who must repay overpayments, how recovery can be made less onerous.