NRLN Members Experienced Social Security Overpayment Clawback

Twenty-three NRLN members know that Social Security overpayment clawback can happen to anyone – because it happened to them. 

On March 11, 2024, the NRLN sent an email to all members requesting that anyone who has had to payback money to Social Security participate in the NRLN’s brief survey. The purpose of the survey was to support the NRLN’s efforts to change the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) regulation on overpayment clawback.

The NRLN sent letters to Congressional leaders in December and the new Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley earlier this month proposing that the existing SSA overpayments be waived when it was SSA’s fault and the current Social Security Code of Federal Regulations be replaced with statutory language similar to the NRLN’s proposal on pension recoupment that was enacted in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022.
 
Since passage of SECURE 2.0, a company doesn’t have a fiduciary obligation to recoup; but if it does recoup it must be done within three years of initial overpayment and may not recoup more than 10% of the overpayment per year. 

In a statement issued March 20, Commissioner O’Malley said the agency would cease “the heavy-handed practice of intercepting 100% of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly Social Security benefit” if they failed to respond to a demand for repayment. Instead, he added, the agency will limit the clawback to 10% of an overpaid beneficiary’s monthly benefit. Additionally, the SSA will extend repayment plans to 60 months, up from its prior limit of 36 months, giving recipients an additional two years to repay the money. 

The NRLN applauds Commissioner O’Malley’s actions. We will continue to advocate for the parts of our proposal not yet adopted by SSA.

I want to thank the 23 NRLN members who participated in our survey. Their responses provided valuable information into SSA’s handling of recovery of overpayment which in each of our members’ cases was through no fault of their own. 

This was a quick survey but the input is very useful. If others want to add to the pile, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SSAQ