The majority of people who’ve gone through the process of trying to apply for Social Security disability benefits know how difficult it is to finally start collecting benefits, so it may be somewhat of a surprise that some people actually collect more money than they are entitled to from Social Security.
Occasionally Social Security will overpay disability recipients. The main reason for this is benefit payments don’t stop once a person no longer becomes disabled. There have been some instances where Social Security had overpaid recipients by the tens of thousands of dollars.
When an overpayment occurs there is only one real certainty – Social Security is going to ask for the money back.
Even if a situation occurs where disability recipients continue to receive payments for months, or in some cases, years after Social Security had been notified that they are working or earning too much money to qualify, recipients should not consider it “free money.”
Overpayment issues happen fairly frequently. According to the Government Accountability Office, which oversees the Social Security Administration, an audit found that Social Security made $1.3 billion worth of overpayments in just two years.
Budget constraints and large Social Security disability backlogs are blamed for the overpayments issues because the backlogs delay reviews of income information that alert Social Security that it should stop payments.
Once Social Security is aware of an overpayment issue it will notify the recipient and advise of possible repayment options. Repayment options include paying back the overpayment over a period of time.
If a recipient disagrees with Social Security’s conclusion that an overpayment has occurred, recipients can appeal the decision and ask Social Security to either waive the entire amount of the overpayment or waive a partial amount of the overpayment.
To learn more about overpayments click here.
