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SSA Overpayment Recovery

HEHS-96-104R Published: Apr 30, 1996. Publicly Released: Apr 30, 1996.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed how the Social Security Administration (SSA) recovers overpayments of benefits. GAO found that: (1) SSA is precluded from upwardly adjusting the amount it withholds from a recipient's income or benefit to repay overpayments at the time of cost of living increases because it collects supplemental security income (SSI), retirement and survivors insurance (RSI), and disability insurance (DI) benefit overpayments based on a fixed amount; (2) allowing SSA to increase the monthly withholding amount at the time of a cost of living adjustment could accelerate the recovery of overpayments without imposing an undue burden on recipients or incurring excessive administrative costs; (3) accelerating recoveries while recipients are still receiving benefits improves the chance of collecting overpayments; (4) SSA administrative costs would likely increase only in the first year of implementation; and (5) the cost of notifying recipients of the new withholding procedures would be negligible, since SSA already notifies recipients when overpayments occur.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Social Security Administration SSA should make all future adjusted recovery amounts in the SSI program a percentage of the total monthly income and all future adjusted recovery amounts in the RSI and DI programs a percentage of the monthly benefit amount.
Closed – Not Implemented
SSA believes that the benefits of implementing the recommendation are low compared to other debt collection improvements it is considering. As a result, SSA does not believe it will be able to give serious consideration to implementing this recommendation in the near future.
Social Security Administration SSA should determine whether it would be cost-effective to convert all existing adjusted recovery amounts in the SSI, RSI, and DI programs to a percentage of the monthly payment amount.
Closed – Not Implemented
SSA believes that the benefits of implementing the recommendation are low compared to other debt collection improvements it is considering. As a result, SSA does not believe it will be able to give serious consideration to implementing this recommendation in the near future.

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Topics

Administrative costsBeneficiariesCollection proceduresCost of livingFederal social security programsGovernment collectionsOffsets (accounting)OverpaymentsRefunds to governmentSocial security benefitsSupplemental security income