Kathleen Romig is director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It should be a very high priority at the agency to produce more reliable numbers,” Romig said. The number of people experiencing overpayments is important to know because overpayments can cause a lot of harm, said Kathleen Romig of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who worked in research at the Social Security Administration and has since spent 20 years in the field of Social Security policy. The people affected may be retired, disabled, or struggling to get by on only minimal income. In the meantime, the amount the beneficiary owes the government can grow to tens of thousands of dollars or more - far more than people living month to month could likely repay. In many cases, the overpayments were the government’s fault.īut, even in cases where the beneficiary failed to comply with requirements, years can pass before the government catches the mistake and sends a notice demanding repayment, often within 30 days. Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Weekly Edition.Īt issue is the scope of a problem that has terrified many Social Security beneficiaries and plunged them into financial distress.Īs KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations jointly reported in September, the government has been trying to recover billions of dollars from beneficiaries it says it overpaid. Steube said that, when he heard Kijakazi’s testimony, he thought she was giving the subcommittee the complete numbers. “Maybe we should have her come back in for another hearing, put her under oath,” and ask her “why she wasn’t being completely upfront about the numbers,” Steube said. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), a member of the subcommittee, said in an interview that he wondered if the agency “intentionally deflated the numbers to not make it look as bad as it is.” She would not say.įor answers, the news organizations several weeks ago filed a FOIA request. Social Security systems “were not designed to easily determine this information,” she said.Īfter the October hearing, KFF Health News and Cox Media Group sent Tiggemann several emails asking her to clarify whether the annual numbers Kijakazi gave to Congress included all Social Security programs or just a subset. The numbers “were gathered quickly,” the spokesperson said. “We cannot confirm the accuracy of the information, and we have informed the committee,” Tiggemann said. In a statement for this article, SSA spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann described the numbers of people Kijakazi provided in her testimony and those she left out as “unverified.” The document indicates the fallout from Social Security overpayments and clawbacks is much wider than Kijakazi acknowledged under direct questioning from a House Ways and Means subcommittee that oversees the federal agency. That’s according to a document KFF Health News and Cox Media Group obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.Īcting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Kilolo Kijakazi read aloud from the document during the hearing but repeatedly left out an entire category of beneficiaries displayed on the paper as well. Do you have an experience with Social Security overpayments you’d like to share? Click here to contact our reporting team.
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