OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A growing bipartisan group of lawmakers is inquiring as to why the Social Security Administration has mistakenly overpaid benefits to millions of older Americans and has since hit them with demands for them to repay amounts that often amount to thousands of dollars.
Fox Business Network reported on Friday that House members within the Ohio delegation sent a letter to Dr. Kilolo Kijakazi, the acting commissioner of the, seeking answers for the agency’s efforts to claw back overpayments from beneficiaries, many of whom have not done anything wrong.
The bulk of Americans affected are elderly and disabled people who are on fixed incomes and are now in danger of having their benefits cut off or frozen until their alleged debt is paid back.
Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, one of the letter’s lead authors, told Fox News that for years, the SSA has been harassing beneficiaries who were impacted by mistakes the agency has made as though recipients had committed fraud.
“Seniors and disabled Americans living on fixed incomes are not criminals, and they don’t deserve to be treated like criminals by the federal government over a mistake — and I can’t stress this enough — that is not their fault, but rather the result of a bureaucratic mistake on the part of the federal government,” Carey said.
He shared a letter from a constituent that was dated December 2021 in which the SSA said the benefits had been miscalculated.
“That constituent not only started receiving more money monthly, but the Social Security Administration sent them a check to cover what was retroactively owed through 2017,” said Carey. “Then, in August of this year, that constituent received a letter from the Social Security Administration saying that the initial miscalculation of their benefits was wrong. This constituent was told they now owed the Social Security Administration more than $7,500 in overpaid benefits, and they had only 30 days to pay it off.”
Legislators contend that over one million Americans receive notifications annually regarding Social Security funds erroneously distributed. During Congressional testimony in November, SSA Acting Commissioner Kijakazi mentioned that 986,912 Americans were sent clawback letters in fiscal year 2023.
Fox Business added:
However, a CBS “60 Minutes” report based on a Freedom of Information Act request to the SSA found that Kijakazi understated the problem. The report said more than 2 million Americans annually are informed their Social Security checks were too big — more than two times the number Kijakazi told Congress. Beneficiaries have found out they owe the government tens of thousands of dollars, CBS reported, and are given a short window, often just 30 days, to pay it all back.
Those impacted include the retired, disabled and people who rely on Social Security as their sole source of income.
“Older and disabled Americans who have done everything correctly when filing for Social Security benefits but received overpayments through no fault of their own should not be penalized for erroneous mistakes made by the Social Security Administration,” said Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, the leading Democrat who signed onto the letter.
“Our seniors rely on these payments to pay their bills and put food on the table — they can’t afford for the SSA to be making life-altering errors. This letter seeks to hold the SSA accountable and ensure all seniors receive the correct payments they deserve,” she said.
In a statement to Fox Business, SSA spokeswoman Nicole Tiggemann stated that the administration does not have an exact figure for how many of the 67 million Americans who receive Social Security are affected by overpayments.
“Our overpayment systems were not designed to easily determine this information. As part of the review directed by the Acting Commissioner, we are looking at how best to inform the Agency, the public, and Congress about this workload,” Tiggemann said.
