The new head of the Social Security Administration is promising to do what he can to end the agency’s overpayment penalty practices.
Appearing before the Senate Special Committee on Aging, Martin O’Malley expressed his opposition to previous policies and said he was determined to implement changes in order to “address the injustice that we do to real people who through no fault of their own find themselves to have 100% of their benefits that they live on intercepted.”
Instead, only 10% of a person’s monthly check will be retrieved when a Social Security recipient fails to respond to an overpayment notice, rather than seizing the person’s entire monthly payment.
O’Malley, the former Governor of Maryland and Mayor of Baltimore, noted that Congress requires the Social Security Agency to make every effort to recover what are called “overpaid benefits.”
“But doing so without regard to the larger purpose of the program can result in grave injustices to individuals,” he remarked, while referencing elderly people who have lost their homes or been put in “dire financial straits” when their payments are suddenly discontinued.
“Innocent people can be badly hurt,” O’Malley continued. “And these injustices shock our shared sense of equity and good conscience as Americans.”
Besides reducing the repayment obligations to 10% of a check, said O’Malley, the agency will now impose repayment plans that could stretch out to 60 months.
“Finally,” said O’Malley, “we will be making it much easier for overpaid beneficiaries to request a waiver of repayment, in the event that they believe themselves to have been without any fault and/or without the ability to repay.”
In larger comments, O’Malley revealed that the SSA this year will serve 7 million additional beneficiaries, “with about 7,000 few full-time permanent staff” as compared to a decade ago.
While staffing has increased to around 60,000 as of the end of last year, which O’Malley characterized as “still historically low,” he added nonetheless that it was “better than the roughly 56,000 at the end of the prior year.”
In confirmation hearings last year to become the new SSA head, O’Malley said he hoped to work on the agency’s challenges in a bi-partisan manner with Congress. Referencing his years as a mayor, O’Malley remarked: “I learned there is no Democrat or Republican way to fill a pothole.”
By Garry Boulard